The protection body for Franciacorta was established on March 5, 1990, as a group of grape growers with common passions and motives, primarily interested in the protection, evaluation and promotion of Franciacorta grape growing and its overall territory. The protection body is made up of growers with small holdings, private and industrial winemakers with small, medium and large productions, world renowned businesses, specialized family businesses, all with an age-old tradition and attachment to the cultivation of Franciacorta. The protection body represents three professional categories: grape growers, winemakers and bottlers involved in the productive chain of the DOCG, DOC and IGT wines in the area (Franciacorta, the white and red Terre di Franciacorta wines, and the Sebino table wines). There are 120 producers associated with the Franciacorta Consortium; the bottling cellars number 71 and 62 of these supply various types of Franciacorta DOCG wines to the market. The protection body has a wide range of activities: on the one hand, it monitors production, and on the other, it evaluates the denomination and the wine. Monitoring is performed in the vineyard throughout the entire grape growing year, on the grapes (taking samples to determine the natural minimum volume and determine the best time for harvesting), in the cellars during the winemaking process (with chemical and organoleptic analyses of samples in the various phases, regarding times employed for the winemaking processes, bottling, refining and marketing of the bottles of wine). These are all fundamental elements for the ongoing guarantee of a steadily increasing quality for the consumer. This is possible thanks to the production and marketing choices made by the members of the protection body: correctly limiting the yield of the grape harvest, relying primarily on the Chardonnay vine for harmonization and specificity of tastes, constraining the vineyards to use compact and short types of plants and pruning, raising the physical and chemical characteristics of the basic product, lengthening the fermentation of Franciacorta DOCG in the bottle for as long as possible, providing the most complete information to the consumer, and, dulcis in fundo, reserving the denomination of the region Franciacorta for the most prestigious of its wines, Franciacorta DOCG.