La Fenice – Lazio

A DREAM COME TRUE

Our wish was to create a product that represented the tradition of our land, “Ciociaria”. La Fenice is created to evoke once again all the flavors, scents, nearly forgotten emotions, through the rediscovery of a sublime handmade “Nonna” recipe. Our aim is to offer a product with a renewed and refined taste, that preserves its roots in the most ancient tradition, to reach out to an audience increasingly demanding and more careful to quality of the product. The goal of “La Fenice” is to fascinate the refined palates, cultivate our passion and share the love for good things.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

“La Fenice” distances itself from the sweet and too alcoholic product stereotype. Similar products on the market, in fact, have gradations between 25% vol. and 30% Vol., on the contrary, our Company has chosen to limit the alcohol content (18.50% Vol) and, consequently, reduced the amount of added sugar. We took this decision with the purpose to make a more balanced product, enhancing its main components: wine, 100% Cesanese of Olevano Romano (Buttarelli Cellar), strong and structured, with clear hints of red fruit; cherries, wonderful fruit, with and unmistakable harsh and determined flavor; white almonds offer a smooth fragrance and manage to integrate gently in a concert of freshness and almost forgotten. “La Fenice” represents a novelty within the eno-gastronomic scene; with its low alcohol content, which is the result of the maceration of the cherries in wine, and its balance between herbs, spices and flavors, offers the possibility to be used differently: at the end of meals, as an alternative to traditional distilled liquor or as strong wine to combine with desserts, biscuits or chocolate. We suggest serving La Fenice at a temperature of 10-12 ° C.

LA FENICE PRODUCTION PROCESS

FIRST PHASE:

Cherry maceration in red wine in stainless steel containers. The duration of this first phase is about 30 days.

SECOND PHASE:

Filtering the wine using a pump and a carton filter. We must press the cherries with a press, and then we filter the juices. The wine and the juice are then mixed and the resulting mixture filtered.

THIRD PHASE:

Adding sugar, ethylic alcohol 95% vol., white almond essence. Leave the finished product in steel containers for about 10 days.

FOURTH PHASE:

Bottling the finished product through stainless steel fillers. Once bottled, “La Fenice” is ready for distribution.

HISTORY AND TRADITION

La Fenice is ​​inspired by a recipe from the 1900s. “One kilogram of Cherries, one liter of Good Red Wine, a quarter of Alcohol, a quarter of Sugar. Herbs & Spices. The infusion sets for thirty days under the sun, then we press the cherries and it becomes liquor.”

“La Fenice” is inspired by an other liquor from the “Ciociara”: “Rattafìa” whose origin dates back to the early ‘900s. People say that before the First World War, in the absence of drugs, it was tradition to give a glass of Rattafìa to children and old people as an antiseptic, as a source of vitamins and sugars. “Rattafia” was also used as a digestive and as a remedy for various physical disorders. The elders say that at the time of the “ 1918 flu pandemic”, a pandemic flu that between 1918 and 1919 spread throughout almost all Europe, who had taken this liquor was saved from the disease. A recipe of the late 19^th century handwritten by Maria Coletti Sipari is now kept in the “Buriani” private archive in San Donato Val di Comino (FR), birthplace of the woman.

The popular tradition traces its origin much further back in time, back to the time of ambassadors and rulers that, usually, discussing around dinner tables, used to seal agreements toasting with this tasty beverage and exclaiming “PAX RATA FIAT” from which the name should derive.