Celebrate the Start of Spring with a Vintage Rally

Photography by Pierpaolo Romano

A couple of months ago, the European Winter Marathon braved snow and ice to tackle the Italian Dolomite Mountains for a historic regularity or TSD (time, speed, distance) rally. The cars in attendance ranged from spectacular to merely amazing; imagine running your BMW 507 or topless Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider up icy slopes.

While the thought of that might be too frightening for some to stomach, the organizers understand and are planning to host their seventh annual spring-time classic Franciacorta Historic on Saturday, April 12th. The cars are pre-1968 and include a restricted number of historic and collectable cars built before 1976. The rally spans 120km (about 75 miles) and forty-five check points that criss-cross the recently thawed, wine-producing Italian countryside.

Franciacorta in Lombardy (close to the Mille Miglia’s starting point, Brescia) is most famous for sparkling wines produced using the Classic Method, or second fermentation in the bottle. Nature has, over thousands of years, sculpted the region, creating a breathtakingly varied landscape awash with color. Additionally, Franciacorta’s sparkling wines were the first Italian sparkling wine produced exclusively by the Classic Method, to win, in 1995, official status as a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG). Today, the front label on the wine reads, simply ‘Franciacorta’ with this one term defining the growing area, production method, and wine.

A wine tour of Franciacorta is not just about the discovery of wine. Each cellar chronicles the history of the families of Franciacorta who, with tenacity and determination, upheld the tradition of wine production, now famous world-wide. The Franciacorta Historic entrants however, will have to wait to sample the bounty until the celebration following the event.

We’ll bring you the story from the perspective of a young team that will be driving the Franciacorta Historic as soon as we have it. And if you’d like to register or follow along, use the links on the next page.

Register for the rally via their Facebook event page, here.

Follow the Franciacorta Historic on Facebook, here.

And follow their Twitter feed, here.