From the atlas
Cantine Umberto Bortolotti srl
At A Glance
Producer: Cantine Umberto Bortolotti srl Country: Italy Region: Veneto Appellation: Prosecco Valdobbiadene DOCG Grape: Glera Production: 300,000 to 500,000 bottles annually Founded: 1947
The Producer
Umberto Bortolotti opened his winery in 1947 with a diploma from the Scuola Enologica di Conegliano and a specific idea about what Valdobbiadene Prosecco could be. He did not simply make wine in the appellation. He helped construct it: co-founder of the Prosecco Confraternity in 1946, co-founder of the Protection Consortium in 1962, co-founder of Italy's oldest Wine Route in 1969. The rules that now govern Prosecco production in Valdobbiadene were shaped, in part, by the same man who ran this house.
The winery moved to its permanent Valdobbiadene address in 1954 and has not moved since. Bruno, Umberto's son, continued the work. Daniele, Bruno's nephew, runs alongside him today. Three generations, one address, one appellation.
In a category where industrial volume is the norm, Bortolotti still harvests by hand. Annual production sits between 300,000 and 500,000 bottles, large by artisanal standards but modest against the tank-method factories that dominate the Prosecco shelf.
Place
Valdobbiadene sits in the Treviso hills of Veneto, northeast Italy, at the western end of the Prosecco zone. The appellation, Prosecco Valdobbiadene DOCG, covers steep hillside parcels where the terrain makes mechanical harvesting difficult and altitude pushes growing season later into autumn. The primary grape is Glera, an aromatic, relatively low-tannin white variety that produces wines with vivid floral character and bright acidity when grown at elevation.
The DOCG designation, introduced formally in 2009, separates Valdobbiadene from the broader Prosecco DOC zone. Wines from this appellation carry higher regulatory requirements: maximum yields are lower, hand-harvesting is more common, and single-vineyard Rive designations are permitted for parcels within individual villages. Bortolotti's signature wine draws on one such parcel, the Piai Alto vineyard in the village of Cison di Valmarino, at 270 to 330 metres altitude.
Soil And Site
The Valdobbiadene hills are composed of morainic and limestone soils left by glacial retreat, with clay and loam subsoils on the lower slopes and rockier material higher up. At Piai Alto, the Sui Lieviti vineyard sits between 270 and 330 metres, high enough that ripening slows and Glera retains the acidity that defines the wine's character. Farming at this elevation uses copper and sulfur-based products for vine health, without synthetic inputs.
Story
Umberto Bortolotti graduated from Conegliano, the town whose oenology school has trained Veneto winemakers since the nineteenth century. He founded the winery in 1947 in the immediate post-war period, when Valdobbiadene was rebuilding both economically and institutionally.
What followed was unusual. Rather than confining himself to his own cellar, Umberto became an architect of the appellation's governance. The Prosecco Confraternity, which he helped found in 1946, was an early promotional and regulatory body. The Protection Consortium in 1962 laid the formal legal groundwork for what would eventually become the DOCG. The Wine Route in 1969, the oldest of its kind in Italy, opened the region to tourism and trade in a way that would reshape how Valdobbiadene wines reached the market.
The move to the current address in 1954 committed the family to Valdobbiadene permanently. Bruno carried the winery forward after Umberto. The current generation operates inside institutional structures that Umberto helped draft, on land the family has farmed from the same location for over seventy years.
Vineyards And Cellar
Bortolotti works with farming partners who use organic methods across the parcels that supply the winery. Copper and sulfur applications replace synthetic pesticides and fungicides, which at these altitudes and hillside exposures reduces disease pressure without chemical residue in the fruit.
Harvesting is done by hand across the range, a choice that matters most on steep Valdobbiadene hillsides where mechanical equipment cannot operate safely and where gentle handling of Glera clusters preserves the aromatic freshness the grape produces. The harvest decision is followed by careful sorting before fermentation.
For the Sui Lieviti, fermentation happens in bottle rather than in pressurised tanks. The wine is then aged on its lees and left without disgorgement, a method known in the Veneto as col fondo. The lees contact adds a slight savouriness and earthy depth to the wine that tank-method Prosecco does not carry. The Sui Lieviti is fermented in bottle, aged on its lees, and left without disgorgement.
Wines
The range is built around Prosecco Valdobbiadene DOCG and anchored by the Sui Lieviti. The Brut and Extra Dry 47 represent the house's accessible tier: tank-method Proseccos produced from Glera across the DOCG zone, each named in part after the founding year. They offer the characteristic Glera profile: white peach, acacia blossom, and a clean, direct effervescence with moderate acidity.
The Sui Lieviti stands apart in method and character. It is 100% Glera from the single Piai Alto vineyard in Cison di Valmarino, fermented in bottle and aged on lees without disgorgement. Where the house's Brut is fine-bubbled and immediately clear, the Sui Lieviti is opaque and textured, with a creamy mousse and the quiet yeast-derived complexity that extended lees contact produces. It has received 91 points from Vinous, reflecting that this is a serious wine in a category not always taken seriously.
The range allows two distinct readings of what Glera can be: a clean, fragrant sparkling wine for immediate drinking, and a more complex, less filtered expression from a named hillside parcel.
In The Glass
The Sui Lieviti rises from the glass with white peach, ripe pear, and a faint brioche note from the lees. The mousse is soft and creamy rather than sharp, produced by bottle fermentation rather than tank carbonation. On the palate, the acidity from Piai Alto's altitude keeps the wine alive through the mid-palate, lifting the fruit without making it sharp. The lees contact adds a mild savoury quality, a hint of dough and almond, that sits below the fruit rather than dominating it. The finish is dry for Prosecco, clean, and longer than the effervescence suggests.
The Brut and Extra Dry 47 wines are lighter in weight and cleaner in profile: immediate floral and stone-fruit character, bright acidity, and a mousse that dissolves quickly. They are made to be drunk young and cold.
A Bottle To Understand It
The Prosecco Brut Nature Sui Lieviti Valdobbiadene DOCG is the bottle to start with. It is 100% Glera from the Piai Alto vineyard, fermented in bottle on lees and not disgorged, which means it arrives cloudy and alive in the glass with a soft mousse and more texture than any tank-method Prosecco on the same shelf. The acidity from the altitude vineyard keeps it from going flat or heavy, and the lees contact gives the wine a quiet savoury depth. It is a bottle that requires a gentle invert before serving and rewards the small amount of attention.
Anecdote
Umberto Bortolotti founded his winery in 1947, one year after helping establish the Prosecco Confraternity, the first formal body to promote and regulate what Valdobbiadene wine could be. He had graduated from the Scuola Enologica di Conegliano, trained his eye on what the hillside parcels could produce, and then turned his attention outward. In 1962 he was among the founders of the Protection Consortium, the legal architecture that would eventually underpin the DOCG designation. In 1969 he helped create the oldest Wine Route in Italy, drawing visitors and trade buyers up into hills that most people had never heard of. By the time he had finished, the winery he ran and the rules it operated under had been shaped by the same pair of hands. Bruno and Daniele have continued from the same address in Valdobbiadene that the family fixed in 1954, a building that has not moved while the appellation around it was gradually assembled by the man who founded the house.
Final Word
Cantine Umberto Bortolotti is a Valdobbiadene house with a specific place in the appellation's history and a clear point of view in its wine range. The hand-harvested Glera and the col fondo Sui Lieviti mark a deliberate distance from the industrial Prosecco category. Umberto's three institutional contributions remain the clearest proof of how seriously his generation took the appellation. The house his family built inside those rules is still standing.
Sources
- https://www.prosecco.it/en/scheda-cantina/bortolotti/
- https://www.skurnik.com/producer/bortolotti/
- https://www.bortolotti.com/la-cantina/
- https://www.skurnik.com/sku/prosecco-brut-nature-sui-lieviti-valdobbiadene-docg-bortolotti/