Region: Soave DOC, Veneto, Italy

Varietal: 100% Garganega

Tasting Notes: Working with a patchwork of hillside crus, Monte Tondo is a true family affair that is on the cutting edge of white winemaking in Italia. This Soave is bristling and clean, flinty and fragrant, with terrific notes of granite, citrus, green apple, and ripe mango. A truly wonderful, clear-headed, single estate wine.

Producer: With larger-than-life personalities, the Magnabosco clan – led by father-daughter team Gino and Marta – likes to draw you in, spoil you properly, and leave you laughing. For all their mirth, however, the elegant wines of Monte Tondo remain worthy of serious discussion. Few estates can rival their multiple tiers of Soave, each backed by its own unique cru and soil type.

Vineyard & Winemaking: In almost every way, the small, family operated estate of Monte Tondo sets itself apart. Contrasting the large coops which dominate the Soave Classico region, Monte Tondo represents the true artisinal minority: not only are their wines low yield, single estate and picked by hand, but in lieu of grapes grown in the vast alluvial flatlands, Monte Tondo’s whites hail from various crus on the hillside above the town, each complete with its own unique soil profile. These sites in turn allow Gino Magnabosco and his daughter, Marta, to create tiers of Garganega-driven whites with a remarkable array of personalities. Their Soave Classico, for example, comes from vines growing halfway up the slope in a pocket of clay and limestone, lending the wine its bright-eyed structure and telltale minerality.