Ferrari Perlé Zero, much more than a pas-dosé

The result of a project initiated over ten years ago, Perlé Zero is a blend of three different vintages - 2006, 2008 and 2009 - the base wines of which were matured and aged differently in three types of containers: wood, stainless steel and glass. 

The latest novelty from Ferrari is called Perlé because the Lunelli family wanted this new Trentodoc to be part of their top-shelf Riserve and Vintage line, which over time has been enriched and today together with the classic Ferrari Perlé includes the three versions Riserve Perlé Bianco, Nero and Rosé. It would be trite to define Perlé Zero as just a “no dosage” wine in the Perlé line because it is the result of a project that demanded many years of work and is not purely just a no dosage version of an existing wine .

During its official presentation in Milan – which was accompanied by the creations of chefs Norbert Niederkofler and Alfio Ghezzi – Matteo Lunelli described Perlé Zero as a “mosaic of vintages that express the essence of mountain Chardonnay”.  Marcello Lunelli, the technical director at Cantine Ferrari who inherited its winemaking secrets from his uncle Mauro, explained that “the base wines of the different vintages were aged in containers made from different materials:  stainless steel , which exalts the expression of the fruit and the aromatic essence of the Chardonnay; wood , which gives the wine structure and rich flavor; and glass , which provides additional depth and expression”.

But the true soul of Perlé Zero because evident in its full complexity after speaking with Ruben Larentis, an award-winning enologist who has been at Cantine Ferrari since 1986 and who for over 30 years has supervised production and has been the dedicated keeper of the “Ferrari style”. Perlé Zero is the end product of long research  to create a Trentodoc that was completely unique in the Ferrari line to the point that the absence of any dosage was almost a secondary aspect. This because had Ferrari only wanted to offer the market a simple no dosage wine it could have done so many years ago, riding the wave of the  commercial success that has resulted in a rise in the consumption of the various Extra-Brut and Brut Nature wines. This also in consideration of the fact that Perlé Bianco is already an Extra- Brut and Giulio Ferrari also has very little dosage.

The Perlé Zero project, on the other hand, underscores the constant research the Lunelli family has imposed at Ferrari and that has been carried out thanks to the meticulousness and perfectionism of Ruben Larentis and his technical team, a quest for excellent that began with an analytic examination of the grapes, the extreme attention paid to the particular characteristics of each vineyard and the consequent improvement in the methods used in the winery to exalt the high quality of the prime ingredient from the vineyard.

All this produced an absolutely new Trentodoc, full of complexity while maintaining the all the purity of the Chardonnay . It is a wine that could almost be defined “for experts only” in consideration of the complexity above all in regard to flavor. It is not a vintage wine but a blend of three different vintages – 2006, 2008 and 2009 – the base wines of which were matured and aged differently in wood, stainless steel and glass with secondary fermentation beginning when the blend was bottled in 2010. For this reason, each cuvée is identified by the year it was bottled and thus the one presented at preview tasting was a Cuvée Zero 10 . It is a product targeted for the experienced consumer who can appreciate how this Perlé Zero today is still young despite having sat six years on the lees (with wines up to ten years old) and that time will bring out even more interesting nuances.

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