Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense and layered white with sliced-apple, pineapple and honey character. Medium to full body, hot stones, bright fruit and a long and flavorful finish. So many peach and lemon undertones. A gorgeous wine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Soave Classico la Rocca is a beautiful wine that should hold for the best part of the next decade. This is a sophisticated expression from the appellations with apricot, honey, saffron and slightly toasted oak aromas. The wine remains balanced and harmonious throughout, despite the difficulties of this vintage. Soft and luscious fruit flavors add weight and importance to the finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2014 Pieropan La Rocca Soave Classico is a white wine that you can chew on and serve with a sumptuous meal that many would reserve for red wine pairings. Its concentration would work well with organically raised game hen. Drinks nicely now. (Tasted: October 10, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine & Spirits
The 10- to 50-year-old vines in Pieropan's La Rocca vineyard cling to chalty-clay soils on the southwest slope of Mount Rochetta, ripening the Garganega grapes into late October for this rich and spicy wine. Brief skin contact lends deep color and lush flavors of lemon curd and baked apple. Fifteen months in oak barrels heightens the sumptuous character, imparting notes of vanilla bean and toasted nuts, yet the wine maintains a tight acidity that pulls the rich flavors in an upward spiral. A few years of cellaring will allow the flavors to knit together.
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Wine Spectator
Elegant and creamy, this light- to medium-bodied white offers rich hints of peach tart and pastry cream alongside more delicate honeysuckle, star fruit and ginger flavors. The fresh finish lingers with minerally smoke and stone notes. Drink now through 2021.
One of Italy’s classic white varieties, Garganega flourishes in the rolling vineyards surrounding the medieval village of Soave and is the dominant variety in the wine from the region, aptly known as, Soave. By law it makes up 70-100% of the blend with the remainder traditionally finished off by Trebbiano di Soave for its crispness. Somm Secret—The best Soave wines, measurably elegant and vibrant, come from the Soave Classico zone, in the center of Soave, where the hills are made of decomposed volcanic and granitic soils.
Among Italy’s classic whites capable of great potential, Soave is named after the medieval village and surrounding hillsides from whence it comes. The original, historical Soave zone, delimited back in 1927, covers the eastern, volcanic hillsides of today's general Soave zone and is called Soave Classico.
Garganega, the indigenous grape responsible for great Soave, produces medium bodied white wines with fine acidity. Typical in the best Soaves are lively flowery and fresh herbal aromas and flavors such as orange zest, peach, melon and marjoram. The best can take some age and in so doing, develop notes of chamomile, marmalade and honey.
By the 1960s and 70s, Soave was enjoying such a glorious global reputation, that its demand forced growers to push beyond the zone's original borders. Expansion led west out of the hills and onto the alluvial plain of the Adige River. This, coupled with an increase in yields and allowance of additional varieties such as Trebbiano, Chardonnay and Pinot blanc, met demand but created a softer, fruit-forward, everyday Soave. Today the broader region can be the source of charming and value driven whites. But those labeled as Soave Classico or in rare cases, as Soave Colli Scaligeri (nearby hillside vineyards abutting the Classico zone), will be the best quality and age-worthy Soaves. These are often 100% Garganega.