From Trento to the podium, the Ferrari putting fizz into F1

TRENTO, Italy : Charles Leclerc hopes to win his home Monaco Grand Prix this weekend but the only Ferrari sure to be represented on the most glamorous of podiums is the sparkling wine sprayed after every race.

Italian winemaker Ferrari Trento is the 'Official toast of Formula One', which for a global television audience largely translates as jubilant drivers celebrating by drenching each other in fizz.

Based in the Alpine city of Trento in north-east Italy, the brand is unrelated to the team of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and traces its roots to the dawn of the automobile era and long before Enzo Ferrari built his first racing car.

The family-owned Villa Margon, above the vineyards and on a wooded hillside overlooking the Adige valley, is a Renaissance jewel open to the public and with frescoes painted in the 16th century that remain as vibrant today.

Far from any racetrack, and up a stony road, the silence is broken by birdsong.

The modern winery down in the valley, with traffic thundering past on the A22 motorway to the Brenner Pass and Austria, can store 20 million bottles with more than six million sold last year.

Founded in 1902 by Giulio Ferrari, the business was sold to Trento wineshop owner Bruno Lunelli in 1952 with the third generation now at the helm.

"My uncle and Enzo Ferrari were very good friends," Ferrari Trento vice-president Camilla Lunelli told Reuters over lunch at the company's Michelin-starred Locanda Margon restaurant, where chef Edoardo Fumagalli creates miniature culinary masterpieces.

"Enzo Ferrari also asked my uncle Gino (if he could) enter the equity of our company because he said ‘I’m really not into wine, I don’t understand anything about wine but I like the idea of Ferrari wine'.

"But we are a family