Massimo Coletti

Just east of the famed hills of Conegliano lie the slopes of Colle Umberto and San Fior in the Treviso zone. It is now well-known that this wider region for Prosecco has endured a chequered winemaking history over the past century, too often relying on high production from poorly grown sites, in a drive to meet demand by way of lowest-common-denominator wines. This problem is best exemplified by the relative disappearance of col fondo sparkling wines, a historic practice where the wines are bottle-refermented without removing them from their lees and are released without disgorgement. Unlike the vast majority of what is labeled Prosecco, the best col fondo wines marry dryness, texture, and dimension to freshness and satisfaction, while moderating the Glera grape’s inherent fruitiness and at times excessive extroversion.

The Coletti family has farmed these hills for four generations. Like many others, for years they sold their fruit to larger cooperatives while maintaining a small winery to bottle wines for themselves and their guests–making and drinking Prosecco in the classical style, col fondo, on its lees. But it is Massimo, the fourth-generation to helm the farm, that has brought the quality of the estate into view, bottling multiple col fondo wines from a range of grapes–native Glera, Verduzzo, but also Chardonnay–with a particular attention to specific cru bottlings, in particular the family’s original plot, Via Larghe, and the newer Borgo Faliero vineyard.