In the interplay between history, wine, and culture in Franciacorta, one publication is truly remarkable, one of the first in the world on the subject of making wines through a natural fermentation in the bottle and on their influence on the human body. Gerolamo Conforti, a medical doctor of Brescia, published his significantly-titled Libellus de vino mordaci (Book on lively wines) in 1570. Conforti, whose studies preceded those of the renowned Dom Perignon, underlined the generous distribution and widespread consumption of sparkling wines in that period, which he called “mordaci,” that is spritzy and foaming. 

But he went further, describing them with the expertise of a trained taster, attributing to them “a prickly or spritzy character that does not dry out the palate, as do immature or too-austere wines, and which do not leave a formless sweetness on the tongue, as do sweet wines.” He then listed their healthful advantages. Conforti, who was also quite conversant with French wines, observed that Franciacorta wines became more actively foamy during the springtime, and then subsided during the summer. The foaming of course was caused by the ebullient action of the must, or in today’s terms, by the fermentation. Even in those days it had to be controlled, “lest the gaseous output, delicate and prickling, be lost.”

These valuable observations were perhaps what led the first producers of Franciacorta sparkling wines to employ grains of barley both to encourage and to lengthen the fermentation.