Twenty white and sparkling wines of the Veneto

Ponte Pietra, Verona

My trip to Verona and its surrounding hills in September of 2016 was clearly destined to reveal the charms and intricacies of Valpolicella, Ripasso and Amarone. That much I made clear in a report published last week and though it included 64 tasting notes, I’ve yet to make public those on Amarone, in part because a July Masterclass in Barolo at Collisioni will need to join the party. Sooner rather than later all of those reviews are sure to follow.

I had been travelling with a Canadian contingent tighter than Spoon the Band and a 2014 Chablis Grand Cru. We were a group on the same page, collectively in knowledge and agreement of where we stood on the 100-plus wines we tasted and in how we viewed the 18 producers who poured them. Six of those Valpolicella wineries also presented some white and sparkling wines because they hold estate plots, farm or purchase grapes from Venezia, Soave and Prosecco area vineyards. Some grow garganega and chardonnay on Valpolicella lands. These are the twenty wines tasted.

Sparkling wines

Ca’ Rugate Fulvio Beo Spumante Metodo Classico, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

Fulvio Beo Spumante Metodo Classico opens the portal to sparkling enriched by Brognoligo di Monteforte d’Alpone volcanic soils and the magic intendment clause it backs with second fermentation in bottle. Beo’s 100 per cent garganega spends 24 months on its lees, developing mid-range texture that will not use ego to steal from the flighty and haute-citrus aromatics. That said the broad palate welcomes plenty of acidity, seemingly equal and opposing to the (6-7 g/L) of sugar. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted September 2017 carugatevini oeno2 @oenophilia1 @carugate.aziendaagricola @ConnexionOenophilia

Ca’ Rugate Amedeo Lessini Durello Riserva Doc Spumante Metodo Classico Pas Dosè, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

The near solo 90 per cent durello particular sparkling takes on 10 per cent garganega for grounding. The elevated acidity (more than 9 g/L TA) can’t help but deliver this searing lemon nose, reminiscent of an early-picked Franciacorta Blanc de Blancs or generally speaking of a northern Italian chardonnay pierce. A patient 42 months on the lees makes for quite an extraordinary palate, yeasty and plush with plenty of fleshy texture. This is bubble tart and so very to the volcanic point replete with a green streak of mineral-herbal business. Very busy, wound tight and immediately satisfying. It may be taut but its amassed parts mean that it’s ultimately not overly acidic. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2017

Emilio Fidora

Fidora Tenuta Civranetta Prosecco Spumante Brut, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $19.95, WineAlign)

Fidora’s Tenuta Civranetta Spumante Brut comes from the estate close to Venezia and is composed of one hundred per cent glera. The base wine spends its time in stainless steel, followed by the addition of fresh must and (the 9 g/L RS) collects no extra sugar in dosage. Longer fermentation (six to eight weeks) is completed for a finer pelage, starting out at a low alcohol and then brought up to 11 per cent. The richness is an ulterior one, fruit-driven, must-augmented, double-juiced if you will. A mix of vines of many ages are used, up to 30 and as young as just a few years. Flavours are complex enough to pause at pears and delve into peach, even mango. It’s not creamy and the acidity has a directness to it. Quaffable but also for under $20 Prosecco, a step taken forward. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Fidora Tenuta Civranetta Prosecco Spumante Extra Dry, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $18.95, WineAlign)

From the Venezia estate known as Tenuta Civranetta the Prosecco qualified as Extra Dry holds 14 g/L of RS but comes across as quite arid despite the healthy must dosage and curiously less aromatic than the Brut. Returns to straight pear and wet concrete, ginger, salinity and pinpoint accurate Prosecco rendering. There is more drinkablilty if less flavour compound complexity and this because the acidity is more direct and directed. A conundrum for sure if you can’t decide, so why not choose both? Drink 2016-2019. Tasted September 2016 fidorawines thelivingvine @eugeniatorelli #fidorawines @TheLivingVine @fidorawines The Living Vine inc.

Sneak label preview of Camilla’s @massimago pét-nat sparkling. Così grande, così perfetto

Massimago Zurlie, IGT Verona, Italy (Agent, $21.95, WineAlign)

Zurlie is Massimago’s newest product, a 100 per cent confondere corvina made in the sur lie Vino Rifermentato In Bottiglia style. The fruit is 100 per cent 2015 and until now, no one in Valpolicella has tried to make sparkling wine in this confounding style. Passes through secondary fermentation with sugar added into the bottle and then a seal under crown cap. Extreme acidity abounds because it’s accomplished sur lie, a wine to clean your mouth at the end of a wine tasting. Delicately raises a perfume almost after the fact from an easy drinking picnic wine stolen straight from the fridge. So much fun and just extreme freshness, in a way cider does but also cannot do. This speaks at the highest level of simple brillance. A four year dream in the making. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted September 2016 massimago @Massimago Massimago

Magò Brut Rosé

Massimago Spumante Brut Rosé Millésime Magò 2014, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $34.95, WineAlign)

Magò is Camilla Rossi Chauvenet’s Charmat Method, 100 per cent corvina blush sparkler and another Massimago wine born of dreams and initiative. We climb to the top of the exposed white limestone ridge to sample this unmitigated refreshing fizz, light, aromatic and ethereal. To say it does wonders for grape, method and place would be the correct way to explain the situation. Magò sees 10 hours of maceration and eight months of lees aging. Though intentionally sweet (10.4 g/L RS) it is expertly balanced by acidity and even more so by exceptionally dry, limestone-conditioned extract. This is the key and the kicker, that and elevation, on a windswept, exposed geological place of wonder. The setting and presentation notwithstanding this is an impressive effort from the simplest of technologies at the hands of the soft-spoken and the kind. So yes, do enjoy this with “an elegant dress, the magic of waiting and the taste of freedom.” Or whatever romantic notion you prefer to call your own. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted September 2016

https://youtu.be/WxB4weCzqGE

Pasqua Prosecco Doc Treviso Brut Romeo & Juliet, Veneto, Italy (Agent, WineAlign)

Pasqua’s Prosecco is made with 100 per cent glera, from the hills around Conegliano and dosed with approximately 10 g/L of sugar. It’s semi-sweet and fresh tanky, of pears quite ripe, basic as basic gets. Some citrus slips in to taste and a pastry note pipes commercial grade. Would likely retail in Ontario at $14-15. Drink 2016. Tasted September 2016 pasquawines #ChartonHobbs @PasquaWinery @ChartonHobbs @pasquawinesitaly

Pasqua Prosecco Superiore Conegliano Valdobbiadene Brut Millesimato 2015, Veneto, Italy (Agent, WineAlign)

Like the Romeo and Juliet, this is again 100 per cent glera and much more substantial, with lees contributing to aroma and texture, some yeast into the citrus, much greater persistence and presence. A slice of lemon meringue pie with some positive bitterness. Just a hair less at 9 g/L RS dosage. Should gain a biscuity flavour or two as time passes. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted September 2016

Tenuta Ca’ Bolani Prosecco, Veneto, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

A Zonin property, from an estate with 600 hectares of vines, much of it planted to glera for Prosecco, while here there is the inclusion of must from other producers. Very frothy, airy, light and made round by acidity. Dry and just a touch concrete-earthy. Technically sound. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016 zonin1821 @Zonin_USA @zonin

Antica Osteria Paverno

Whites

Ca’ Rugate San Michele Soave Classico 2015, Doc Veneto, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

The tender young vines take on great responsibility for this 100 per cent garganega, wines from all over the hills, Brognolino and Monte Forte, all Classico, all hillsides. Soave fresh, crisp, crunchy white and yellow fleshed, of really corporeal fruit. The clean, gulpable, cool and minty Soave with a firm finish. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Ca’ Rugate Soave Classico Monte Fiorentine 2015, Doc Veneto, Italy (Winery, SAQ 12469375 $20.85, WineAlign)

Monte Fiorentine Soave is fully and completely a single cru garganega that was picked over three days late in September (22-24), off of black basalt volcanic soils. It’s rich and mouth filling, variegated in all sorts of lemon; curd spooned atop and with meringue, fleshy and zesty, without pith. Quite amenable and ready to please though by nature it will likely develop some sémillon like honey and gaseous character with a few years. May not be as long lived as some of its more recent vintages so let’s say five plus years to be safe. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted September 2016

Ca’ Rugate Soave Classico Monte Alto 2014, Doc Veneto, Italy (Winery, SAQ 10775061 $25.85, WineAlign)

Monte Alto is the barrel aged volcanic garganega, subtle in aromatics but much more pronounced on the palate. Spent eight to ten months in big barrels (60 per cent) plus first, second and third fill barriques (40). Even more striking than the wood impart is the flinty, gassy, basalt interference, a static electric push-pull into wood out of soil with a whack of acid on the fruit. It was a very good year 2014. Finishes with another lightning strike. Drink 2017-2024. Tasted September 2016

Ca’ Rugate Soave Classico Monte Alto 2015, Doc Veneto, Italy (Winery, SAQ 10775061 $25.85, WineAlign)

In a year that saw fruit ripen and develop with both abundance and ease the Monte Alto needed to be less the barrel aged volcanic garganega and more the incredibly fresh, fleshy step up Soave. The scent of scratched peach skin and the multi-vitamin flavours of many a stone fruit abound. Less subtle in aromatics but equally pronounced on the palate, the big barrels and barriques weigh in and reduce the effect of flint, basalt and acidity on the fruit. It was a very warm year so look for flesh in the fantasy. Drink 2016-2024. Tasted September 2016

Fidora Pinot Grigio Tenuta Civranetta 2015, Doc Venezia, Italy (Agent, $17.95, WineAlign)

This estate’s (near Venezia) organic, mildly (and would hazard a guess nearly unsulphured) pinot grigio is actually dosed at 40 mg/L. A mineral direct articulation and posit tug by association transcends from a second calcareous layer of soil below the fertility line. This layer is replete with sea creature and shell fossilized dirt, appearing in this wine in terms of salinity and funky muscadet-like mustiness. Yet its clean and of a purity borne out of an order delivered by a Venice moment in pinot grigio. Timeless, of clarity and via precision. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Fidora Pinot Grigio Tenuta Civranetta 2015, Doc Venezia, Italy

The Tenuta Civranetta experimentation changes gears with pinot grigio and increases the sulphur dose to 90 mg/L. Nothing is lost in terms of salty-mineral-calcareous-fossil shell notes but here we are involved in a game played more alive, an increase of flint and without any noticeable oxidative properties. Might live to drink fresher one year longer. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted September 2016

Fidora Pinot Grigio Tenuta Civranetta 2014, Doc Venezia, Italy (Agent, $17.95, WineAlign)

Already a touch oxidative and losing flesh but the mineral is as strong as ever. Lemon and herbs on the back drop of the tart oyster shell and waning moon of acidity. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Pasqua Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie 2015, Veneto, Italy (213496, $11.95, WineAlign)

Similitude never had it so easy in what is the most generic and unassuming white wine there can be. Fresh as it can and needs to be, kind of terpenic, non-descript multi-apples juice with determined acidity major and sulphur minor. The choice to grow pinot grigio on expensive Valpolicella land is curious but the market demands more so the economy of scale makes the plantings worth the while. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Tenuta Santa Maria Soave Lepia 2015, Doc Verona, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

Lepia is 100 per cent garganega Soave from the Illasi Valley, rich but with an important mineral influx, not so much a streak but more like a cloud. Leesy, akin to chenin aromatics, almost flinty, with 150 years of Bertani Soave experience behind it, at least in spirit and from 40-45 year old vines. Still acts reductive so shake it up, listen to the Cars and nod in agreement. “Don’t let nobody pick your fun,” step outside the volcano and see how limestone can also perform for Soave, as such a garganega will abide. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2016 tenutasantamaria @TenutaPieve @tenutapieve

Tenuta Santa Maria Chardonnay Torrepieve 2013, Veronese, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

Cool, savoury, flinty and like the garganega, reductive as per the house style and for chardonnay in Italy. Immediately noted as an exceptionality. There is barrel used to great effect and considering there is some age here it is strikinglky youthful and not yet unhinged. Certainly caramel and vanilla aromas and flavours but plenty of lime and spice. The first vintage for the TSM di Gaetano Bertani chardonnay was 2004. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted September 2016

Zonin Garganega De Gambellara 2015, Veneto, Italy (Winery, WineAlign)

Estate grown, from a vineyard 150m above the church in the Classico area (of Prosecco). Though simple and straightforward, the terroir of basalt volcanic delivers a distinct mineral edge. Strikes as chenin like, really chenin like, full of major citrus and minor lees. Perfect vintage, with notes of yellow plum, glade, a touch balmy but plenty of acidity boiling down to sapidity. Hard not to like this a lot with thank you to the dry extract. Keep it chilled and drink to sooth and quench. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted September 2016

Fall at Fidora

Good to go!

Godello

Twitter: @mgodello

Instagram: mgodello

WineAlign

Massimago in astral Valpolicella light

Mar1

Camilla Rossi Chauvenet

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about certain producers I have met through the course of my recent travels. Every wine region has its stars and while it’s quite rare to have a bad visit or negative experience, some visits simply turn on the lights. Sometimes there comes along a winemaker and a place with a special kind of light. Last September I found such an experience on a windswept limestone ridge in Valpolicella. Massimago.

Windswept white limestone vineyard at Massimago

Words of advice. “Lasciate la vostre ansia e le scarpe al cancello.” Massimago is the dream of Camilla Rossi Chauvenet, in Mezzane di Sotto found in Valpolicella’s Mezzane Valley. “A little heaven in the north part of Italy.” Massimago, from the Latin “Maximum Agium,” the maximum benefit. Camilla considers Mezzane as the most secret and wild of Valpolicella and her family’s land has belonged to the Cracco Family (on the maternal side) since 1883. In 2003 she began to transform the company into its modern-day renaissance.

Now (and I believe since 2014, officially) organic though that has always been the philosophy, the new generation believes in the Eminem credo, one shot equals one opportunity. Young guardian and creator of Massimago Camilla Rossi Chauvenet’s roots are never forgotten, emotion and creativity define identity and complexity will lead to longevity. On her website Camilla writes, “Massimago and I are tightly holding our hands, step by step, sooner or later we shall arrive, but please do not hurry us, time in nature is slow and unstoppable.” Truth.

Lasciate la vostre ansia e le scarpe al cancello

There are 28 hectares of vineyards, olive trees and woods. The soils are a nominative palette of limestone, marl and clay. Traditional varieties (corvina, corvine and rondinella) cultivated in Pergola are transformed into wines assembled from only estate grapes. A wine relais experience on site confirms Massimago as a Veronese wine experience hotel. As noted in Italian above there is but one rule. “Leave your anxiety and your shoes at the gate.”

On that September day I paid a visit and sat down to taste seven Massimago wines with John Szabo M.S., Joshua Corea, Annette Bruley, Jules Garton, José Luis Fernández, Lauren Hall and Nick Chajoglou. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm and these wines changed everything I thought I knew about Valpolicella. Così grande, così perfetto. I saw the light.

Magò Brut Rosé

Massimago Spumante Brut Rosé Millésime Magò 2014, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $34.95, WineAlign)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB4weCzqGE

Massimago Valpolicella 2014, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $29.95, WineAlign)

Few reference points can prepare you for Massimago’s style of Valpolicella so simply use this as the ingress. Plucked from vines in the Mezzane Valley in the east part of Verona province, rising from the village of Vago towards Mezzane di Sotto. Camilla Rossi Chauvenet’s precocious blend is the crisp, crunchy, pure as driven white limestone portal into the soils laid out in amphitheatre vineyard grid. Camilla uses only stainless steel tanks here to accentuate a basal clarity brush stroke on her Valpolicella canvas. This from a selection of the grapes that will not enter the Amarone process, the second and third pass harvested bunches. Cherry and silty saline mingle at the interces of limestone. How can you miss the white stone in the naked Valpolicella? You can’t. It’s without make-up, transparent, naked to the world. The wine speaks a natural vernacular and the land is spoken for. If villages-level Bourgogne were made like this all would be well in the world. Lithe, delicate and perfumed. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted September 2016

Godello can hardly contain his enthusiasm for Camilla’s Valpolicella

Massimago Valpolicella Superiore Profasio 2012, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $54.95, WineAlign)

Profasio establishes new territory for Valpolicella Superiore from Mezzane Valley fruit in a wine over dinner “that lets you talk.” A careful and specific selection of Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella (65/30/5) is subjected to “un leggero appassimento,” or a “slight withering” from one month of drying and the rest kept thankfully and respectfully fresh. The child is raised in stainless steel for five months plus one year in 2nd and 3rd passage barrels. This is Valpolicella meant to partner up with dinner for two, replete with secret recipes and crossing glances. “We feel the appassimento method is about levels of aromatics,” tells Camilla Rossi Chauvenet. In such a contrary to Superiore belief we find freshness and anti-jam the goal and as a result, the wine is allowed to tell a story. A script written cursively, crisp and pure, crunchy like the normale with an addendum of aromatic profiling; cherry, leather and red citrus. Profasio is a wine of good temper and vision (and could mean profezia, or prophecy, or perhaps a surname in reference to Dante and the Veronese ebraico’s Almanacco Perpetuo), a Valpolicella into a second level of contemplation, but not too much. The wine causes no worries, no anxiety and shoes are left at the bottom of the mountain. Profasio with its hint of dried momentum is a wine of communication and a new way of communicating. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted September 2016

Camilla Rossi-Chauvenet talks Ripasso

Massimago Valpolicella Ripasso Marchesi Mariabella 2014, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $40.95, WineAlign)

Yet another new launching point, this time for the much maligned Ripasso category, acquiesced through the fresh urgency of the whimsical Marchesi MariaBella. The fruit is borne of a a much earlier ripening vineyard outside of Massimago, perched only at an insignificant 100m on Argileux soil. This a Ripasso I will wager large you have never tasted before. La Bella Poesia, “is different because its literary destiny has followed a strange path.” To say that a feminine disposition, temperament and engagement fills not just the aromatics but also the texture would be a Valpolicella understatent of this early century. There is virtually no dried fruit on the nose; there is more tension than the two classic Valpolicellas which is both counter-intuitive to terroir and to methodology. Ripasso needs to carry both weight and tension. It needs to have some elegance. It requires acidity and freshness. This walks that very line and it will age gracefully and with beauty. Incidentally to answer the query of whimsy each character on the label represents the democracy of the proletariat. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted September 2016

This is Camilla and Matteo. They will change everything you thought you knew about #valpolicella

Massimago Amarone Della Valpolicella Conte Gastone 2011, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $77.95, WineAlign)

If at first the Conte Gastone Amarone seems to be the freshest Amarone ever tasted it will in fact creep up and get upside so don’t be fooled. It is in fact a brooding, sulking, contemplative mess of intense fruit. The assessment is magnified when compared to a barrel sample of 2015 tasted minutes before. With no disrespect to carefully raised and quite specific red fruit the 2011 Amarone punch drunk (16.5 per cent alcohol) love can’t help but overwhelm as is its want and ilk. Here the Massimago conditioning of (65/30/5) corvina, corvinone and rondinella is treated with 100 days of appassimento, 30 months in large botti and smaller French barriques and then 12 further months in bottle. Camilla’s suggestion would be to enjoy her Amarone “brainstorming with friends, feasting on dreams and quiet omnipotence.” While hers is indeed more cerebral and contemplative inducing than most, 2011 is just a beginning and fashioned as a means preparing Valpolicella towards an end that will begin with that fresh maker of a ’15. Drink 2017-2024. Tasted September 2016

“I gotta have some of your attention, give it to me.” @massimago #special #brassinpocket

Massimago Amarone Della Valpolicella 2011, Veneto, Italy (Agent, $109.95, WineAlign)

The packed and punchy Massimago labeled simply Amarone is the stronger one and with deferential ability manages to bring the Conte Gastone into bright, fresh, highlighted, beautiful infrared light. Not that the fruit is any less presumptuous or magnificent but considered side by side here it is really just acidity and tannin that drives the intense machine. The suggestions of “brainstorming, feasting and omnipotence” are more than apropos for a wine of preponderance, indulgence and power. The young wine is rigid and so full of fruit, an impossible combination in Amarone and like the Gastone is just a precurser to what will be coming in Camilla Rossi-Chauvenet’s dreamy Valpolicella future. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted September 2016

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