Italians call it a brindisi, the celebratory clinking of glasses to mark a special occasion.And if the occasion is really special, there is a good chance it will involve fizz from Ferrari, the country’s market leader in the production of top-end sparkling wine.
A 113-year-old family-run business based at Trento in the foothills of the Alps, this Ferrari has nothing to do with Formula One.
It has long been synonymous with Italian sporting success however, most famously when legendary striker Paolo Rossi glugged from one of its magnums after the national soccer team had triumphed in the 1982 World Cup final.
On home soil, Ferrari is also a wedding toast favourite and a perennial choice of Italian leaders seeking to impress visiting dignitaries, most recently at the World Expo in Milan, where Prime Minister Matteo Renzi teased French President Francois Hollande that he would not find anything better in Champagne. “The great heritage of the brand is how it is entwined with Italians’ lives and emotions,” says the firm’s youthful CEO Matteo Lunelli.
Along with a clutch of cousins, Lunelli is now looking to leverage Ferrari’s domestic reputation into international growth, helped by growing critical acclaim and marketing breakthroughs like being served at the after party at this year’s Emmy awards. At the recent Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships in London, the Italian producer entered nine wines and secured nine gold medals, walking away with the overall best producer award ahead of venerable champagne houses Charles Heidsieck and Louis Roederer.
“It is unheard of,” said bubbles authority Tom Stevenson, the competition organiser. “It has certainly never happened in any competition I have judged at around the world.”
Lunelli believes the export-led boom in sales of cheaper-to-produce Prosecco, which has recently surpassed champagne to become the world’s most popular sparkling wine, can help Ferrari expand steadily in its target niche at the luxury end of the market. “Of course it is a challenge to explain to customers the diversity of Italian sparkling wines, which come from very different areas and are made in very different ways,” he said.
“But I’m convinced, the success of Prosecco opens a door for us,” he said.Experts are not quite so sure at a time when the trend in wine marketing is towards recognisable brands — something Prosecco, with its easy-drinking style and easy-to-remember name, has benefited from.
“Prosecco’s success has made it tougher for more expensive wines like Trento DOC and Franciacorta,” says Christy Canterbury, a New York-based writer and Master of Wine. But at least people have their eyes on Italy for bubbles. The rising tide floats all boats.”
Lunelli also sees global gastronomic trends as favourable. “Especially in Asia, you see more and more five-star hotels having Italian restaurants where once they would all have been French — that is also a very positive for us,” he said. Ferrari’s top wines are named for Giulio Ferrari, the quality-obsessed, pioneering founder of the company.
It was Ferrari who, after studying winemaking in Montpellier, France, introduced the champagne system for making sparkling wine to the Trentino region. He was also one of the first to promote the planting of chardonnay, a non-indigenous grape variety that is at the core of most of the world’s best sparklers. The founder died in 1952 without an heir, bequeathing his life’s work to a friend, Bruno Lunelli.
