
2019
Region
Italy › Veneto › IGP Veneto
Type
white · still · sweet
Grapes
Garganega
Alcohol
15.5%
Volume
500 mL
Recioto-style passito from Gambellara - apricot jam and dried apricots leading, then chestnuts, salted nuts, a turn toward savoury that balances the sweetness. Round and mineral. A flicker of salt, a hint of bitterness. Complex, fine-boned, layered. So good. With gubana - a Slovenian-Friulian sweet bread - a perfect match.
Recioto-style passito from Gambellara. Made from Garganega grown on volcanic basaltic soils at ~300m in the Agugliana locality. Grapes are dried on the traditional 'picai' racks from harvest through the following spring, then soft-pressed for ~8 hours - yielding only ~30% of starting weight. Native-yeast fermentation begins; before alcoholic fermentation finishes, the wine moves into old French oak barriques where it completes (partially) the AF and goes through full malolactic. Total of around 40 months in wood, then bottled unfiltered.
Technical: 15.29% ABV, 69.5 g/L residual sugar, 5.20 g/L total acidity. Around 890 bottles produced (0.5L format). Vines are pergola veronese on terraced volcanic slopes; first plantings 1968, average age 30-50 years; biological farming on biodynamic principles.
Producer's framing, paraphrased from their notes: 'I didn't want it, I wasn't looking for it - Quatto Quatto presented himself to me. The flavour, not particularly sweet, paired with his oxidative dress, went straight to the heart.' Their Recioto di Gambellara - the sweetness dampened by oxidation, ending up closer in style to a Marsala than to a typical syrupy passito.