Recently, I had the chance to taste a soon-to-be released Soave wine with a retail price of more than $900 a bottle. It was poured from an unlabeled bottle in the tasting room of Inama winery by winemaker Matteo Inama. He and his father, Stefano, sat back—amid postersized maps of Soave Classico and displays of its famed volcanic soils—and awaited my reaction. We’d already tasted the new vintage of I Palchi, their current top-end wine, made from micro-parcels selected from 50-year-old vines grown in the volcanic soil of Foscarino, among Soave’s most famous crus. I Palchi, at over $60, is already one of the most expensive wines from the region. But this new “off-the-record” release was something else entirely. Matteo Inama told me they’d shown the wine to the sorts of collectors who buy premier cru Burgundy and Grosses Gewächs German Riesling, and those people were already preordering cases.
The Inamas insist this will be the wine that finally puts Soave on the international fine-wine map. It was certainly exquisite. However, after considering it for a moment, I asked, “But does it taste like Soave?”
“What is even the tradition of fine wine in Soave?” replied Matteo, with a chuckle. “We are like cavemen here.”
Stefano chimed in: “Can Soave be a top white like Burgundy or German Riesling? We didn’t know before. We didn’t have anyone running the marathon in front of us. We didn’t have any reference. But now we know.”
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This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
