Cantina Ottella winery, Lugana, Italy
Questions of philosophy and art are key to understanding the wines of celebrated Lugana producer, Ottella. Ethics meet aesthetics from the moment the visitor wends their way up the driveway, under the watchful shadow of the Monte Baldo to the east and the refreshing breezes of Lake Garda to the north.
Situated in Peschiera del Garda and straddling the Italian provinces of Verona and Brescia, the Ottella estate spans 90ha. Here, making wine is seen as an art form all of its own, a creative expression of the unique combination of terroir, vintage and winemaking choices.
Spanning the generations
The land has been in the hands of the Montresor family for over a century, and today sees fifth generation Lodovico and Lamberto join the team. As attested by historian Giovan Battista Perez, the Montresor family is recorded as the only producer of Lugana in the province of Verona as far back as 1905. This sense of historicity is echoed even in the family coat of arms, which recalls the local legend of 43, from which the company takes its name ‘Ottella’ (otto = eight).
The key figure in the winery’s history and current identity is Lodovico Montresor, (father of present owners Francesco and Michele), who combined his love of art collecting with the world of wine, and was instrumental in founding the Lugana DOC in 1967.
Ottella’s geometric concrete tanks illutrate how the winery combines the practical with the beautiful.
Where winemaking becomes an artform
For
