On February 7, 1996 the club of Buttafuoco Storico was born from the union of eleven young winemakers: Bruno Barbieri, Davide Brambilla, Giuseppe Calvi, Valter Calvi, Claudio Colombi, Ambrogio Fiamberti, Stefano Magrotti, Franco Pellegrini, Andrea Picchioni, Umberto Quaquarini, Paolo Greens. Today the producers of Buttafuoco Storico are 14 and the intent is to collaborate in the research of historical characteristics, in the selection of the most suitable vineyards, in controlled production, in the promotion of the Buttafuoco wine. An important challenge without unconsciousness, but with the conviction of being able to wage war on equal terms with the great Italian and international wines. A completely new adventure for the Oltrepò: getting to have the traditional wine paradoxically new, conceived and created with unusual criteria for our cellars, where the safest parameter for the quality of the wine was always the ability to explode in a compact foam just to pour it. It is therefore difficult to think only of a still wine, still in its austerity, how difficult it is to convince oneself to produce less, to break down the redundant grapes, and how it is even more difficult to submit to the judgment of those who alone will have the right to judge the fullness compliance of the wine with the rules of the Club, to be able to present it as a worthy member in all respects.
On March 5, 1996 the statute is registered, which binds members to produce Buttafuoco according to strict internal regulations. The adopted trademark is made up of an oval, re-enactment of the typical Oltrepò Pavese barrel, sustained by the writing and by the red ribbons of the two torrents, the Versa and the Scorpio, which delimit the historical production area; inside the silhouette of a sailing ship driven by burning sails, a memory that in the second half of the 1800s, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Navy launched a ship called “Buttafuoco”. Legend wants the name is the memory of a battle lost by a company of imperial sailors, led by an activity of ferrying on the river. A local wine called Buttafuoco was more successful than the fire of the battle in attracting a self the bold sailors, which, inside a large cellar, made slaughter of barrels and bottles.
The Historical Zone of production of Buttafuoco is located in Oltrepò Pavese in the province of Pavia, more precisely in that territory called “Sperone di Stradella”, bordered to the west by the Scuropasso stream, to the east by the Versa torrent, to the north by the Po Valley, to the south from the municipal boundaries of Castana and Pietra de Giorgi and halfway through the forty-fifth parallel.
The territory includes the municipalities of Broni, Canneto Pavese, Castana, Cigognola, Montescano, Stradella and Pietra de ‘Giorgi.
The climate is quite cold in winter, but warm and windy in summer, usually not affected by the mists of the Padano basin. The exposure of the vines allows a long daily sunstroke, while in the evening warm upward currents insinuate themselves among the rows. All this guarantees a gradual and complete ripening of the bunches.
This territory, although small, whose surface is about two thousand hectares for a population of about three thousand inhabitants, is characterized by very different geological and soil environments, from which derives the peculiarity of each vineyard to express an absolutely original character in the wines it products.
Comments