Soave - The Long Road Home

BY ERIC GUIDO | APRIL 07, 2022

White Burgundy, Riesling from Germany, Carrricante from Mount Etna, Verdicchio and Trebbiano Abruzzese are among the world’s great wines. The all have the capacity to mature and evolve over the course of many years, and so does Soave. Unfortunately, Soave is the victim of its past success and of the producers who monopolized on that success to fill their pockets, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The undulating volcanic hills of Soave Classico.

The Soave region is located in Northeast Italy, the Veneto, and more specifically, immediately east of the city of Verona. Soave itself is a picturesque town enclosed by a Medieval castle and walls that surround its historic streets and buildings. The city imbues a sense of being, a gateway as you gaze out toward the vineyards, as if its walls and battlements are protecting the hills and valleys from anyone that may wish them harm. These valleys at the base of the Lessini mountains were formed by massive volcanic activity and the shifting of tectonic plates that took place under an ancient sea that once covered the region. This is what laid the foundation for much of the soils throughout Soave Classico, including volcanic, basaltic rocks but also densely stratified limestone and clay, known as Scaglia Rossa. It’s also the reason for the drastic elevations and steep hilly terrain of the region that quickly rises from 150 to 600 meters, something that must be seen to be believed. In fact, when touring the hillsides of the Classico region, or of Soave Colli Scaligeri, one cannot help but question: how can this region be associated with one of Italy’s most mass-produced and often uninteresting white wines?

It's a complex answer that combines a misguided history with modern-day biases that still exist, but are worth understanding. 

As I alluded to earlier, Soave enjoyed quite a bit of popularity through the second half of the last century. This created a number of issues, the first being the drastic increase of vineyards, especially in the plains, that now make up much of the Soave DOC. These vineyards are composed of alluvial soils rich in clay, sand and limestone, the result of glacial movements and streams that ran down from the Lessini mountains. For the most part, it is the vineyards on these flatlands that yield the sweetly scented and flavored Soaves that lack depth. Many of today's producers in the Classico region see this expansion as the catch-all of Soave’s difficult time in the market, but that’s where the complexity of the problem comes into play because also encompassed by the expansion of the Soave DOC are the limestone-rich hills separating Val di Mezzane, Val d’Illasi and Val Tramigna to the east, as well as volcanic hills of Val d'Alpone to the west. These hills, which fall into the classification of Colli Scaligeri, account for 2400 hectares of the entire region's 6900 hectares planted to vine and are capable of producing excellent Soave. In other words, you can’t judge a book by its cover. 

The second issue lies in the grape varieties. There are two principal grapes that make up today’s Soave: Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave. Going back over hundreds of years, these were the grapes found in these hillsides. However, over time, the low-yielding, yet more interesting, Trebbiano di Soave was replaced with the likes of Trebbiano Toscano, Pinot Bianco and Chardonnay. It also bears mentioning that Garganega is a much more vigorous variety. As wineries chose to emphasize quantity over quality, the blending of high-yielding grapes along with a move towards lower-quality vineyards resulted in wines that earned Soave its mixed reputation.