Five star Asti

Every new scientific doctrine, William James maintained, passes through three phases. In the first phase, it is attacked by the sensible as absurd. In the second phase, it is recognized as true but obvious. In the third phase, everyone agrees on its importance and everyone is equally certain of having foreseen it and promoted it.
This is an axiom that has found full confirmation in the studies done on Asti in the Bosca company ever since the early Eighties, when the company first began working closely with the Istituto Sperimentale per l'Enologia (literally, the experimental institute for enology) in Asti, then under the supervision of Luciano Usseglio Tomasset.
Among the many areas of research pursued by this institute, the research on the quality of Asti had yielded results of enormous scientific interest, results that no one had thought of applying to improve industrial production. In Bosca's effort to innovate, it was noted that by applying a little imagination to the results of old research and then applying those results to the industrial production of Asti, it was possible to produce the world's first spumante obtained entirely from grapes. The enthusiasm that this discovery generated made it possible to overcome the numerous objections to the idea of investing time and resources in this direction. Moreover, it appeared clear that this sort of innovation could help to solve the periodic and long-standing difficulties of an important sector of the region's economy. This led to the birth of Five Star Asti. This is the only spumante made without the addition of sugar, because the sugar needed to make it a sparkling wine comes entirely from the grapes themselves. In order to attain this surprising result, however, it was necessary to set out from the vineyard itself, that is to say, from the moscato of the Tenute Luigi IV, which made the task much easier. In any case, it took time and patience, because agriculture, unlike industry, demands that we follow the unchanging pace of nature. Increasing the sugar content of grapes naturally led to an increase in production costs; but the substantial improvement of the aromatic array offered unexpected possibilities to the industry. The five star, are meant to stand for the marvelous new equilibrium attained in this way by the delicate aromas of the moscato.
It immediately became clear that such a refined product demanded special care if it was to be properly preserved. It would have been counterproductive to lavish skill and energy on creating so delicate a product without taking equal care to preserve it adequately, especially when the decisive factor in maintaining the new spumante's characteristics was the temperature at which it was stored and transported. Since there are less valuable products that are kept chilled from production to consumer, it was logical to adopt the same procedure for the new Asti. Aside from the relatively modest cost, the cold-storage process presented no particular problems, thanks to existing equipment, both in trucks and retail outlets.
The hope that this new method of producing Asti might help to restore its popularity is encouraged by the enthusiastic response from consumers, even though every new product needs time to win over its audience.

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