Le Battistelle, "Batistelle", Soave

Over the past decade, Le Battistelle has been buried under an avalanche of critical praise, top scores and major Italian wine awards. I won't name names here, because nothing kills the romance of special wine faster than turning the paragraph into an awards ceremony. More important is what is actually in the glass. The 2024 Battistelle is Italy's answer to farmhouse white Burgundy: textured, golden-fruited, mineral, and just rustic and pure enough to make it clear that it’s the product of manual labor on a punishingly steep hillside, not the manicured product of a winemaking consultant’s lab. There is something here reminiscent of warm-vintage Saint-Aubin, or “luxury” Aligoté from a serious Côte de Beaune domaine, with golden apple, citrus oil, herbs and stone carried by a broad, leesy texture. Even more telling is what happens after you pull the cork. Leave the bottle in the refrigerator and revisit it over three days and the wine doesn't fade one bit; instead, it expands, becoming more aromatic and increasingly integrated. That's usually a very good clue that you're dealing with an elite-level wine possessing far more serious cellar potential than its price or appellation might suggest.

Battistelle is the namesake vineyard of Gelmino and Cristina Dal Bosco's small family domaine in Brognoligo, in the eastern hills of Soave Classico near Monteforte d'Alpone. The family founded the winery in 2002 after deciding to stop selling its grapes to the local cooperative and bottle the fruit itself. That decision matters because Le Battistelle is fundamentally a vineyard story. Their holdings are divided among small parcels scattered through these steep volcanic hills, and Battistelle itself sits on Monte Castellaro, where Garganega has been cultivated for generations. This isn't the broad, fertile plain responsible for oceans of anonymous Soave. It is the historic hillside zone where the appellation becomes something altogether more serious.

The vineyard itself is extreme. Garganega grows on steep terraces held together by dry-stone walls, trained in the traditional Veronese pergola and rooted into basaltic volcanic earth rich in mineral fragments. Mechanization is essentially impossible, which means farming these slopes requires an extraordinary amount of manual labor. The bunches are harvested by hand around the beginning of October, destemmed and gently pressed, with the must immediately chilled before a roughly 20-day temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel. The wine then remains in steel on its fine lees for six to eight months with frequent bâtonnage. There is no barrel trickery here. The breadth, creaminess and almost Burgundian texture come from Garganega itself, ripe hillside fruit and prolonged contact with the lees.

That combination is precisely what separates great Soave from merely pleasant Soave. Garganega is not an explosively aromatic grape, and that is part of its virtue. Like Chardonnay, it can function as a remarkably transparent vehicle for place and élevage. In Battistelle, the ripe orchard fruit and substantial texture are counterweighted by the salty, stony character of the volcanic soils. The wine can feel almost broad at first, then suddenly tighten through the middle and finish with an entirely different register of citrus, herbs and basaltic minerality. It is simultaneously rustic and refined, which is where the comparison to farmhouse Burgundy becomes particularly useful. Nothing feels polished away. The pleasure comes from texture, soil, acidity and the sense that this is a white wine built rather than decorated.

Serve the 2024 Battistelle around 52–56°F in a Burgundy glass, not refrigerator-cold and certainly not in a tiny white-wine glass. In appearance, it is luminous straw-yellow with the first hints of gold. The aromas begin with Golden Delicious apple, ripe pear and preserved lemon, then broaden toward chamomile, white flowers, almond, dried herbs and a faint smoky, crushed-stone character. On the palate, it is surprisingly substantial, with ripe orchard fruit and citrus oil wrapped around a broad, gently creamy, lees-derived texture, while firm acidity and pronounced volcanic salinity keep everything moving. With air, the fruit becomes more golden and the wine develops notes of hazelnut, hay and dried flowers without losing its mineral backbone. The finish is long, savory and increasingly stony, with bitter almond, lemon peel and herbs lingering after the fruit disappears. Pair it with Risotto all’Amarone, one of the signature dishes of the Veronese countryside: the wine's acidity and volcanic salinity cut through the richness of butter, cheese and slowly worked rice, while its ripe apple, almond and leesy breadth stand up beautifully to the dark, savory depth of the Amarone. It is a pairing built around contrast, but also geography, bringing two very different expressions of the hills around Verona together at the same table.