Tasting Note

Producer

The Girellis have been making delicious Lugana for three generations, but a complicated inheritance broke up the family estate in 1998. Robert Girelli, a teenager at the time, rebuilt his holdings, and today runs his new estate “Montonale” with his two brothers Claudio and Valentino. Lugana as you may know, is at the southern end of Lake Garda. The glacier that formed the lake dumped a wonderful soup of mineral rich deposits where the vines grow. And the oft-present winds (Ora and Pelèr), much loved by windsurfers and sailers, make for good hygiene for the grapes. Montonale has around 30 hectares of vines, planted on gravel-rich, calcareous- clay soils that give the wines a spritely texture and lovely poised mineral aromatics. This extends not just to the whites, but the red La Venga too. Valentino, the youngest brother, manages the vineyards and pursues sustainable, low impact practices that have allowed them to use indigenous yeasts and keep sulphite use to an absolute minimum. The harvest is done exclusively by hand, into small cases, from late September to the end of October. Several separate passes are made to ensure that all the clusters are sound and perfectly ripe.

_{Country: Italy | Region: Lombardy | Alcohol: TBC | Grapes: Turbiana}