From the atlas
Azienda Agricola Franchetto
At A Glance
Producer: Azienda Agricola Franchetto Location: Terrossa di Roncà, Val d'Alpone, Verona province, Veneto, Italy Appellation: Soave DOC Key grape: Garganega Style: White, unoaked, mineral-driven Listed wine: La Capelina Soave DOC
The Producer
The Franchetto family has farmed the hillsides of Terrossa di Roncà since around 1800. For most of that time, their grapes left the estate in bulk, feeding the supply chain of other producers. In 1982, Antonio Franchetto was twenty years old. He pressed the harvest himself, made his own wine, and put the family name on the bottle. That decision ended 180 years of anonymity and started a winery.
Today four family members lead the estate: Antonio, his wife Mara, and their daughters Giulia and Anna. Giulia now carries the winemaking work, with an approach built on minimal intervention and close attention to the volcanic parcels her great-grandparents planted. All four are musicians, and it would not surprise a visitor to find a guitar leaning against a barrel in the cellar.
Place
Terrossa di Roncà sits in the Val d'Alpone, a valley running through the eastern Lessini Mountains in Verona province. Roncà is one of several communes that make up the extended Soave DOC zone, the appellation that covers a broad arc of Veneto hillside from the historic Classico heart near the town of Soave eastward into volcanic territory.
The eastern communes, including Roncà, sit on basaltic lava and compressed seabed sediment from a period of volcanic activity roughly 45 million years ago. That geology separates the Val d'Alpone from the limestone and clay of the Classico zone. On basalt, Garganega tends toward sharper mineral expression, with flint and citrus notes that are harder to find on heavier soils. The volcanic origin is not a marketing flourish; it is measurable in the glass.
Soil And Site
The Terrossa vineyard parcels sit at roughly 220 to 230 metres elevation, hand-harvested in mid-September when the Garganega has built enough aromatic complexity without losing its acidity. The basaltic subsoil drains freely and stresses the vines into lower yields and tighter fruit. The warm days and cooler nights of the Val d'Alpone preserve freshness through the ripening period.
The estate also farms a separate mountain parcel at Vestenanova, developed about 40 years ago for Durella, a high-acid indigenous Veneto grape that requires the colder conditions at altitude to ripen slowly without losing its grip.
Story
Antonio's uncle, known in the family as Toni, spent years experimenting on the Terrossa parcels before Antonio came of age. Toni passed the enthusiasm directly to his nephew: the conviction that the volcanic hillside had something to say that bulk grape supply could never express. When Antonio took that seriously enough to act in 1982, the family's entire relationship to the land changed. The grapes stayed home.
The transition from grape supply to estate winemaking is not a romantic abstraction at Franchetto; it is a date, a harvest, and a young man who decided his family's vines were worth a label. Giulia Franchetto carries that inheritance now, working the same parcels with a careful hand, no oak, and the same volcanic soils her family has farmed for two centuries.
Vineyards And Cellar
Garganega is hand-picked from the Terrossa parcels in mid-September and fermented under temperature control in stainless steel. No oak touches the wine at any stage. Temperature control during fermentation preserves the delicate floral and citrus character that Garganega expresses on volcanic soil; oak would cover it. The result at 12.5% alcohol is a light, mineral-framed white with enough freshness to drink young and enough definition to reward a year or two in bottle.
At Vestenanova, Durella is grown at altitude. The grape produces high acidity naturally and is well suited to the colder mountain conditions of the upper valley. Specific production details for the Vestenanova range are not fully documented, but the decision to farm Durella at altitude reflects an ambition beyond the Soave floor.
Wines
La Capelina is the estate's primary white and the most completely documented bottle in the range. It is 100% Garganega from the Terrossa parcels, made under the Soave DOC appellation. The nose is mineral and floral: flint, citrus blossom, and elderflower come up first from the glass. The palate adds cedar and apricot alongside the elderflower, with bright, clean acidity that keeps the wine from feeling soft or short. At 12.5%, the alcohol is low enough that the fruit drives the impression rather than warmth.
The estate also produces from Durella at the Vestenanova mountain vineyard, a high-acid indigenous grape suited to altitude. Pinot Grigio appears in the range as well. Both sit alongside La Capelina in the portfolio without displacing it as the estate's clearest statement.
In The Glass
La Capelina opens with mineral flint, the kind of stony, almost sparky note that the volcanic basalt of the Val d'Alpone pushes into Garganega. Citrus blossom and elderflower follow, light and clean rather than perfumed. In the mouth, the wine is fresh and precise: cedar and apricot arrive on the mid-palate, elderflower threads through to the finish, and the acidity from the volcanic soil keeps everything lifted. There is no oak weight, no softening from lees contact, nothing to interrupt the direct line from grape and soil to glass. The finish is persistent without being long in a showy way. It stays mineral.
A Bottle To Understand It
La Capelina Soave DOC is the right first bottle. It is 100% Garganega, fermented in stainless steel with no oak, at 12.5% alcohol, from volcanic basalt parcels in Terrossa di Roncà. The wine is mineral, light, and floral: flint on the nose, apricot and elderflower on the palate, bright acidity carrying through to a clean finish. Nothing about the bottle asks for food or occasion; it explains clearly what Garganega does on volcanic soil and what the family's unoaked, low-intervention approach produces in practice. Start here.
Anecdote
In 1982, Antonio Franchetto was twenty years old and already working parcels his family had farmed without interruption since around 1800. Until that harvest, every grape the Franchettos picked left Terrossa in bulk to supply other producers. Antonio's uncle Toni had spent years on the same hillside, experimenting and arguing to anyone who would listen that the volcanic soil produced something worth keeping. Antonio had grown up listening. That autumn, he pressed the harvest himself, made his own wine, and filled bottles with a label bearing the family name. It was the first time in roughly 180 years the Franchettos had put their name on anything they grew. The winery built around that decision is still in Terrossa today, now led by Antonio's daughter Giulia, on the same basalt parcels, with the same grapes.
Final Word
Franchetto occupies a specific and honest position in Soave: an eastern commune estate on volcanic soil, making unoaked Garganega with a family name attached for less than half a century. The geology is old, the winery is young, and La Capelina is a direct account of both.
Sources
- https://cantinafranchetto.com/en/family/
- https://cantinafranchetto.com/en/region/
- https://cantinafranchetto.com/en/white-wines/
- https://www.fededivino.com/en/white/46-la-capelina-soave-doc.html
- https://www.systembolaget.se/produkt/vin/7235101/
- https://wineguide.wein.plus/wine-regions/soave-doc