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Interview with Franco Cesconi of Cesconi Winery, Trentino, Italy

Azienda Agricola Cesconi is truly a family affair. The patriarch, Paolo, is ably assisted by his four sons Franco, Alessandro, Roberto and Lorenzo. The Cesconi product that we feature here at the Wine Library is a Nosiola. Made from the grape of the same name which is only found in the Trentino region, this wine is a real CHARMER! – clean, pure, and balanced, this wine is so evocative of the fragrant, clear Alpine landscape from which it emanates. The Cesconis are intensely focused on continually improving their wines rather than on forcefully promoting them, so this is my small contribution to telling the story of success of a small and decidedly passionate estate making wines of evident authenticity and expressiveness.

Tom Ciocco

CESCONI NOSIOLA WL# 5142 $13.99 ON SALE

Tell me the “story” of the “Azienda Agricola Cesconi”.

The Cesconi family has dedicated itself to the cultivation of the vine since 1751. Up until the middle of the 1960s the concern was still quite small, and we delivered all of our grapes to the local co-op. The first big change came from my father Paolo who, with hard work and enormous sacrifices, appreciably enlarged the farm’s land under vine. This work made the estate, by the early 1980s, sufficiently large to provide work for myself and my brother Alessandro. We instituted a production system based on quality, and even though we were still handing our fruit over to the cooperative, these grapes became the material for the co-op’s first line of “elite” wines. My brothers Roberto and Lorenzo, who after joining the company in the mid-1980s, began to finalize a plan to vinify our own grapes. This project was finally realized in 1995 vintage in an improvised cellar. This is how the first 8000 bottles of CESCONI wine was first produced.

You work daily with your brothers, father, etc. Explain how the responsibilities are divided. Is it difficult from time to time to work with family?

The union of forces permits one to reach goals that would be unthinkable for someone who is working alone…I believe that the secret lies in the coordination, but above all in the division of work and responsibilities. Our winery is growing, and we’re in even greater need for this division of work. Alessandro (the first son) primarily concerns himself with tending the vines; I occupy myself almost exclusively with organizational and bureaucratic matters while Roberto and Lorenzo are responsible for all the production in the cellar. We do work directly together, but it is fundamental that we each have specific responsibilities.

To me, it seems that the path forward for many Italian wine makers is through authocthonous (native) grape varieties. You cultivate native grapes varieties like Nosiola and Teroldego, but also Pinot Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Traminer, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, and Merlot. Why? Are there other native Trentino varieties that interest you?

Trentino, for a place populated by a people so closely linked to tradition, is in reality very open to innovation, especially in the field of viticulture. If we go and look at the production statistics over the last decade, we see that the varietal dispersal has quickly and radically changed. In the 50s, Nosiola was the most widely cultivated white grape variety, and now the region is barely squeaking out 100 hectares. And with the exception of certain zones, vines older than 30-35 years are rare. Also, there is the perplexing tendency of the cooperative, which controls 85% of the land under vine, to follow fashions, and to squeeze all it can squeeze out of them, only to change again. In fact, the name of our zone is not linked to any particular wine. Besides Nosiola and Teroldego, I think that Lagrein, which has always been cultivated in our zone, is interesting, while Marzemino finds its perfect situation around the town of Rovereto. Surely, though our native vines have climatic and agronomic exigencies that palpably reduce our working options as opposed to the more pliable international varieties. I think that it is fundamental to follow the character of the zone with regard to climate and terrain in order to achieve the best results; wine must be an expression of its terroir.

Describe the characteristics that want to “build” into your wines. For you, which “voices” have to be heard in your wines? Which have to be suppressed?

Only with low yield per hectare are vines able to express terroir. It is essential therefore that the wines produced in the Dolomite region maintain, besides structure, the characteristics of elegance, balance, sapidity, and fragrance contributing to a drinkability and pleasantness.

What is your opinion of “sustainable agriculture”, “organic”, and “biodynamic” wines? For you, what are the pros and cons of these classifications? Are your wines considered to be “organic”?

Our farming is of the “integrated” type, with minimum use of chemical substances. Within the circle of the Trentino/Trento DOCs production consortia, all of the producers have endorsed an agreement that regulates the utilization of certain active principles that are much more restrictive than the national norms. (In many cases people are casting their lots to the biodynamic side. For the moment, the final results are arguable, and maybe the market is not able to accept wines that SEEM to be defective. I don’t think that there is any room for improvisation – it takes years of work to achieve the perfection and balance necessary for the production of biodynamic wines that possess the acceptable organoleptic characteristics for a normal consumer.)Without being extremists year after year we come up with ideas to gradually change things, above all in the vineyards, ever reducing the amounts of synthetic chemicals, and adopting cultivational practices that “teach” the vines to sustain themselves, starting with soil management, etc.

For me, wine and food are inseparable. Do you think of food (or at least specific food pairings) when you make a wine?

The pairing of food and wine is of fundamental importance. It might be excessive to create a wine for a specific food, but one can identify from the very beginning the potential that is “in construction”.

Do you make your wines for “everyone” or for a specific “public”? In other words, who drinks your wines?

Wine is for everyone, and it’s really good when you receive the praise from both the experts, as well as those who don’t even know how to explain or codify the sensations they’re experiencing, but they find them pleasing nonetheless.

Aside from your own wines, which other wines do you drink during the course of the week (Italian or otherwise). To what degree do the wines that you drink influence the wines that you make?

There have been several phases that characterize the wines that have influenced our wines, early on Californian for their power, but then a slow evolution toward the balance and harmony of French and Italian wines. Now we drink a little bit of everything (at times, even wines from close by in Eastern Europe). It would be great to have more time to taste wine!

When you and your family are not making wine, what do you do for fun?

We’re all skiers in our free time (downhill and cross-country), and thought there’s a lot of work to be done during the summer, there’s usually a little time left to ride a mountain bike or hike through our local mountains .

In which market is it easiest to sell your wines? The most difficult? Why?

It’s difficult to say because the situation is continually evolving. Our business, at the national level, flows through the usual channels: restaurants and wine bars. As far as the foreign markets are concerned, we work with distributors (some regional, some national). In Europe the countries in which we’ve had the most success are Switzerland and England. Germany is a little difficult because much of the product desired there are those at the lowest end of the cost scale.

Do you have a “formula” for pricing your wines? Do you pay attention to your “competition” or do you price without this consideration?

The attribution of a price to a wine is based on several factors. It’s important to assess one’s profit margins with respect to what the competition is doing…the right thing is to cover expenses to assure yourself the right income. The real skill of a winemaker lays in his ability to produce wines of distinct quality at a price that matches this quality.

Are you worried about the dangers of global warming? For you, is it a grave or only minor problem?

We live the dangers of global warming every day. Our glaciers are retreating dangerously, and if this remains the trend for the coming decades, all local winemaking will disappear within 50 years. There is certainly a cyclical component at work, but the works of man weighs heavily on the environment. For us, who find ourselves situated at the base of the Alps, there is a real risk of a major increase in precipitation due to the fact that the mountains prevent any extra-normal precipitation from passing over us.

Interview and translation by Tom Ciocco

To order this wine, call 1 (888) 980-9463 or click on the link below…

CESCONI NOSIOLA WL# 5142 $13.99 ON SALE