Corte Mainente, Bianco Veronese "Secco" IGT, Veneto, Italy 2023

In the white wine village of Soave, post-war Veneto legend Ugo Mainente just bottled his 60th vintage of Bianco Secco.

With less than ten hectares of vines, Mainente’s wines are largely unknown outside the region, but with the recent addition of Ugo’s two sons to the family Corte, this is all about to change. Their latest vintages have received top marks from Jancis Robinson, Gambero Rosso, Falstaff, Wine Enthusiast, and Decanter, and in 2019, Forbes named their Soave one of the “Best Italian Wines of the Year.” 

Work in the cellar is clean, but no-frills, with the Mainente brothers preferring concrete over inox (when possible) but experimenting with larger casks for certain cuvées. For this inaugural release into the American marker, they picked a favorite Soave vineyard from their holdings, and created a bottling exclusively for the US, declassified as “Bianco Veronese IGT” to highlight the larger Verona region over the Byzantine Soave and her 33 recognized crus.

Mainente’s Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave vines are planted on steep terraces overlooking the town, and with 60-80 years of vine age, the flavors they coax from the patchwork terroir of clay, black volcanic fossils, and pure, white limestone conjure up a “steelier” Bourgogne Blanc, but with the flavors of white melon, orange zest, and bitter almond, so prized in the whites of the misty Po Valley.