Continuing traditions (Soave, Italy)

Due to a few inconveniences both good and bad I lost at least seven days of potential visits whilst I was in Italy. Some of these interruptions were for holidays, including Easter which I spent with wonderful family friends in Milano, and who my parents and I also spent Christmas with last week. Other inconveniences were due either to the inability to find wineries thanks to inaccurate directions or addresses, or to wineries not replying to my emails. A final inconvenience was Vinitaly held in Verona, which was a fascinating insight into the world of trade shows but not a particularly good way to learn about wines and regions as not only are you simply tasting wines in a convention centre but the hosts are also extremely distracted with countless other things and therefore not able to give the best introduction to their winery. Whilst I was in Verona I did manage to visit a few producers in Valpolicella which is to the north of the city extending from the east to the west, but there are a number of other areas in Veneto that were left unexplored, including the highest volume DOCG, Prosecco. I had the chance to join a group from Australia for dinner in Verona at the invitation of their Soave producer, and being familiar with their quality I was thrilled to have the chance to take my parents there on my return.

The castle sits overlooking the village of Soave

Pitstop (Valpolicella, Italy - Day Two)

Wandering around Verona for a day, I truly felt like I had arrived to Italy, and also I had walked onto a living breathing Shakespeare set. The city is beautiful, and has all the elements of a classic Italian city; Roman ruins, cobbled (pedestrian) streets, piazzas, trattorias, fashion stores, and lots of stylish attractive people. The city was full of people, partly taking advantage of the great weather, but also a combination of tourists and visitors for the Vintitaly fair which started on the Sunday. The fair itself is away from the centre of town, and so doesn't interfere with daily life in Verona too much. But I'll talk more about Vinitaly in a separate post.

Me above Valpolicella

This Is ITALIA!! (Valpolicella, Italy – Day One)

Driving south through the Adige Valley is quite a spiritual experience, as the Dolomites jut out of the earth in a very rugged and wild way, and houses and vineyards seem to sit precariously on the edges of cliffs. As Alto Adige becomes Trentino, one of the first things you notice is the difference in vineyards. Whereas in the north it is more common to have guyot trellising systems, in Trentino it is more common to have pergola-based vineyards, as Trentino tends to be a little bit more focused on volume. There are a number of great small producers who are focused on quality, and also on more traditional viticultural and winemaking techniques in harmony with nature. One of these is Elizabetta Foradori who I caught up with at Vinitaly, producing wines using biodynamics and using such techniques as amphora fermentations on skins. For white wines no less. It is a shame that I didn’t have enough time to spend in Trentino as I drove through, but Verona and Vinitaly beckoned. As did Valpolicella, less than 30 minutes from the city.

Valpolicella Rosso = pergola trellising