Do you know the history of Soave Classico? We’ve tried to summarize it for you… The presence of grapevines in our region can be traced back at least 40 million years. Fossil evidence found in the Bolca Museum indicates that the Ampelideae family is the progenitor of European wild grapevines. During the Tertiary Period , the Alpone Valley—the site of today’s vineyards—was completely submerged, except for a tropical atoll. This is where the grapevine is believed to have originated, although it is more likely that the fundamental varieties arrived from the East, as was the case with most European vineyards. According to the most reliable scholars, the origin of historic grape varieties such as Garganega can be attributed to the cross-pollination between Rhaetian grapes—which originated from the Ampelidae family—and grape varieties that arrived from the Mediterranean basin. Cassiodorus summarizes what the leading wine experts believed before the year 1000: in his epistles, he recommends that Veronese wines made from white grapes never be absent from the royal table.

“extremely smooth and full-bodied,” capable of expressing “crystal-clear purity, cheerful innocence, and incredible smoothness”

In the 1500s, the area became an interesting center of production. In Soave, there was talk of “a palo secco” viticulture—a method of detaching the vines from the trees to which they were often still grafted—the pergola system gained traction with more intelligent management, and the cultivation of low-growing vines also became widespread. In the 1800s, a distinction began to emerge between high-quality and high-volume production; the blend of Trebbiano di Soave and Garganega was considered the best combination for quality, and efforts were made to identify the most suitable vineyards.