Winemaker Notes
An expressive white, creamy and lightly juicy throughout, offering flavors of blood orange granita, fresh tarragon, yellow peach and mineral, set in a light-bodied frame. The finish is juicy.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is an estate that offers not only among the best white wines in the Veneto, but among Italy’s finest per se. They show even greater transparency and brilliance with age. Apricot pith, cardamon, mango peel, and a waft of vanillin-cedar French oak nicely embedded into the fray. The finish is long and pungently mineral, boding well for bottle age. A hot vintage melded into a coil of well-handled reductive tension and ample flare.
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Wine Enthusiast
70% Garganega (the grape native to this region) plus a blend of 30% Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc creates a heady and enticing nose that is loaded with mixed citrus notes, nectarine, wild herbs and a flinty minerality. The palate plays both to richness with ripe stone fruits at the core, but with vibrant acidity hemming it in, while roasted almonds and dried flowers offer a counterweight to the fruit on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
It's hard to stop sipping this bright, balanced white, which layers a stony underpinning with a lively mix of apricot, star fruit, pink grapefruit sorbet and fresh chive and floral notes. Garganega, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.
With hundreds of white grape varieties to choose from, winemakers have the freedom to create a virtually endless assortment of blended white wines. In many European regions, strict laws are in place determining the set of varieties that may be used in white wine blends, but in the New World, experimentation is permitted and encouraged. Blending can be utilized to enhance balance or create complexity, lending different layers of flavors and aromas. For example, a variety that creates a soft and full-bodied white wine blend, like Chardonnay, would do well combined with one that is more fragrant and naturally high in acidity. Sometimes small amounts of a particular variety are added to boost color or aromatics. Blending can take place before or after fermentation, with the latter, more popular option giving more control to the winemaker over the final qualities of the wine.
Producing every style of wine and with great success, the Veneto is one of the most multi-faceted wine regions of Italy.
Veneto's appellation called Valpolicella (meaning “valley of cellars” in Italian) is a series of north to south valleys and is the source of the region’s best red wine with the same name. Valpolicella—the wine—is juicy, spicy, tart and packed full of red cherry flavors. Corvina makes up the backbone of the blend with Rondinella, Molinara, Croatina and others playing supporting roles. Amarone, a dry red, and Recioto, a sweet wine, follow the same blending patterns but are made from grapes left to dry for a few months before pressing. The drying process results in intense, full-bodied, heady and often, quite cerebral wines.
Soave, based on the indigenous Garganega grape, is the famous white here—made ultra popular in the 1970s at a time when quantity was more important than quality. Today one can find great values on whites from Soave, making it a perfect choice as an everyday sipper! But the more recent local, increased focus on low yields and high quality winemaking in the original Soave zone, now called Soave Classico, gives the real gems of the area. A fine Soave Classico will exhibit a round palate full of flavors such as ripe pear, yellow peach, melon or orange zest and have smoky and floral aromas and a sapid, fresh, mineral-driven finish.
Much of Italy’s Pinot grigio hails from the Veneto, where the crisp and refreshing style is easy to maintain; the ultra-popular sparkling wine, Prosecco, comes from here as well.