Winemaker Notes
This wine makes an excellent partner to complex dishes, even with strong flavors particularly risottos such as porcini, or celery, squash and almond, cod and other fish including salmon, scallops and crab.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
I love the smoky and toasted-almond nose of this concentrated Soave. There’s a great interplay of ripeness and discreet tannins and a very long, fresh and mineral finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A pure expression of Garganega (aged in large oak casks for 15 months), the 2016 Soave Classico la Rocca is a mid-weight white wine with deep intensity and a pleasantly creamy texture. This impressive wine has the inner structure and fiber to pair with tempura or chicken curry.
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Wine & Spirits
La Rocca is Pieropan’s only vineyard planted in limestone soils, and the family harvests this plot last, allowing a small percentage of botrytis to develop. In 2016, those concentrated berries gave the wine a rich, glossy texture and heady honeysuckle scents. Its lush flavors of dried pineapple, pear and candied lemon evolve into savory notes of smoked pork and hints of sweet spice gained from a year in oak barrels. It could almost pass for a Meursault.
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Decanter
Intense nose with evolved flavors of ripe fruit, honey and vanilla. Shows minerality on the palate with smooth and deep texture.
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.