Today’s 90 point (Wine Spectator Magazine) Cavalleri Franciacorta Brut Blanc de Blancs is one of the finest sparkling wines that we’ve ever featured. This delicious and exciting wine shows off a fine, elegant mouthfeel, fresh fruit flavors and a seemingly endless cascade of the smallest and most energetic bubbles.

Fresh cut Meyer lemon, lemongrass, and dried hay lead the way. As the wine warms just slightly, it releases aromas of lychee, pineapple, river rock, brioche and creme brulee.

The mousse is fine and very lively on the palate. Tiny bubbles dance on the tongue, transporting flavors of lemon, lime leaf, orange blossom, brioche, river rock, slate, and pineapple.

Here’s what Wine Spectator has to say:

“A rich, smoky note of roasted hazelnut underscores this sleek, creamy Franciacorta, with vibrant acidity enlivening the palate of poached pear, candied lemon zest, raspberry, toast and ground ginger flavors. Drink now through 2020” - 90 points - Alison Napjus, Wine Spectator (Oct. 2015)

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What exactly is Franciacorta?

Franciacorta is not ‘just another version of Prosecco’. It’s a top-notch, traditional-method (secondary fermentation in bottle) sparkling wine produced in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, France. Still wines have been produced in the region since Roman times, however it is only since the 1970s that a small, but successful, production of sparkling wines really began to emerge. Moreover, Franciacorta was only awarded official DOCG status in 1995.

It’s a baby, essentially. Few mainstream consumers recognize the region yet.

Stylistically, it’s generally a riper, softer, Chardonnay-dominated cousin of Champagne and, like Champagne, NV and vintage versions abound, in addition to good rosés and riserva. The Blanc de Blancs wines, bottled under lower pressure than standard Franciacorta, are silky smooth and utterly exquisite. Moreover, they can age very well.

Franciacorta has risen from complete obscurity to one of the world’s best sparkling wines based on a winning blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc, while focusing on maintaining a high-quality level of production across the board. It actually boasts the most stringent quality controls of any sparkling wine region, including a minimum aging time of 18 months.

The Franciacorta vineyards spread out from the beautiful lake Iseo in a sheltered valley that was formed by glacial erosion centuries earlier. A key feature of the terroir is that the vines are protected from harsh winds by amphitheater-shaped hills that flank the vineyards – the resulting climate is warm and generally sunny, giving riper fruit than you’d find in Champagne, plus the topography and soil types are far more varied than in the Champagne region. Franciacorta is a complex mosaic of different soils, altitudes and aspects, a winemaker’s dream.

Tom Stevenson, the world’s leading authority on sparkling wine, has this to say: “The quality [of Franciacorta] is astonishing, with very few poor producers… almost all share good winemaking, with clean fruit and a general stylistic coherence.”