The winery: where our ideas take shape
The site of the
Maculan winery
In the old town center of Breganze, represents a perfect combination between ancient tradition and state-of-the-art winemaking technology.
The result is a range that pairs an international perspective with an indisputable knowledge of the local area. The wines are made from varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Tai and Vespaiolo, all displaying an identity that is a mixture of the classic and the contemporary.
The winery is a succession of rooms assigned to the various phases of production, each of which can be discovered in a tour that culminates in the “archive” that houses our historical memory. Here we keep some examples of each wine and vintage, starting from the end of the 1970s.
How Torcolato is made
In the dialect torcolato means "twisted"
When, in the 1970s, Fausto Maculan took over the reins of the company, he wanted to create a wine that was different and with which he would stand out from the crowd. Torcolato is typical of Breganze; it boasts extremely ancient origins and Fausto reinterprets it with his own personal style and vision.
As is usual for him, Fausto paid attention to every little detail, transforming an “old-style”, oxidized and syrupy wine into a modern sweet wine: one that is well-made and very appealing, and which made him extremely well-known and popular around the world.
To make Torcolato, alongside “modern” appassimento in crates, 10-15% of the Vespaiola grapes are still dried today by the traditional method. With care and a great deal of manual skill, we twist together string and the bunches of grapes until we obtain a sort of braid (“rosolo” in the local dialect) that we hang from the ceiling. That explains the name of the wine: in dialect, torcolato in fact means “twisted”.
Normally, the harvest of these precious bunches takes place in the third week of September. The grapes are dried in a special loft, a room with large windows and fans to keep the air circulating. This process is a slow, natural one, and it follows the weather pattern of the autumn and early part of the winter.
In January, after four months, the grapes have lost almost 70% of their weight, the concentration of their sugars rises to 35%, and the berries look like raisins. After pressing, a slow fermentation takes place in stainless steel, lasting around one month. Subsequently, our Torcolato rests in French oak barriques for about a year, becoming the precious and delicious nectar that we all know, and which makes our company really stand out.
