Why it matters
The producer
Bersi Serlini sits on the southern shore of Lake Iseo in Provaglio d'Iseo, in Franciacorta, the DOCG zone in Lombardy that produces Italy's most ambitious metodo classico sparkling wines. The cellars beneath the property were cut by Cluny monks from the nearby Abbey of San Pietro in Lamosa during the Middle Ages, and the same underground rooms are where each bottle is hand-turned through remuage today.
The family acquired the property in 1886, after more than 700 years of Cluniac ownership. In the second half of the twentieth century, attorney Piero Bersi Serlini expanded the winery. Then, in 1970, his successor Arturo Bersi Serlini produced the first bottle of Brut in Franciacorta, a dry sparkling wine from these vineyards at a moment when the zone had no DOCG and no reputation for sparkling wine at all. The appellation would come in 1995. Arturo made the wine twenty-five years before anyone could file it under a recognised category.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Franciacorta occupies a glacial moraine bowl south of the Alps in Lombardy, sheltered by the lake and shaped by a wind collision: cold air rushing south from the mountains over Lake Iseo meets warm air moving north from the Pianura Padana, the Po Valley plain. This creates a fresh, even microclimate that holds acidity in the grapes through August harvests, which is what metodo classico sparkling wine needs. Without that cold-warm meeting, the zone would not produce sparkling wine with the mousse, the freshness, or the lees-ageing capacity that Franciacorta DOCG demands.
The DOCG label on a Bersi Serlini bottle means the wine was made by secondary fermentation in bottle, aged on its lees in those medieval cellars, and produced from Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco, or Pinot Nero grown within the Franciacorta zone. In the glass, that translates to the tight bead, the toasted-bread character, and the acid line that separates Franciacorta from simpler tank-fermented Italian sparkling wine.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Organic farming governs the vineyard work throughout. Grapes are hand-harvested in August, earlier than most Italian wine regions, which locks in the acidity that Franciacorta's long lees ageing requires. Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco carry most of the range.
In the cellar, the key practice is manual remuage, the process of hand-turning each bottle in its rack over weeks to gather the lees sediment into the neck before disgorgement. Most large Champagne and Franciacorta producers moved to mechanical gyropalettes decades ago. Bersi Serlini continues the hand process in the underground cellars beneath the property. It is slower and more labour-intensive, and it connects the production directly to the same rooms and the same physical technique the estate has used since before the family arrived in 1886.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range moves from approachable to age-demanding across five styles.
The Anteprima Brut blends 80% Chardonnay with 20% Pinot Bianco. It is the house entry point: yellow apple, nougat, apricot, toasted bread, and citrus on the nose, with a round, fruited palate and enough acid to keep it clean on the finish.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Anteprima Brut. It is 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Bianco, made by secondary fermentation in bottle and aged on its lees in the medieval underground cellars at Provaglio d'Iseo. On the nose: yellow apple, nougat, apricot, toasted bread, a lift of citrus. In the mouth: a clean, fine mousse, round fruit through the mid-palate, and an acid-bright finish that keeps the wine from feeling heavy. It is not a simplified wine; it carries the Franciacorta lees character clearly while staying genuinely easy to drink. Buy this one first to understand what Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco do in this corner of Lombardy when the fermentation happens in bottle rather than tank.