Italy · Soave, Gambellara & Lessini (eastern Verona / western Vicenza)

Azienda Agricola Le Battistelle

A family estate in Soave Classico, farming 100% Garganega on steep volcanic parcels in Brognoligo since 2002, when the Dal Bosco family left cooperative selling to bottle under their own name.

The producer

Le Battistelle farms 14 hectares of Garganega on the steep volcanic slopes of Brognoligo, a quiet fraction of Monteforte d'Alpone inside the Soave Classico DOCG. The parcels are too steep for machinery, hand-harvested on terraces held by dry-stone walls, and carry the CERVIM heroic viticulture designation given to vineyards whose gradient and fragmentation make mechanical work impossible. Gelmino and Cristina Dal Bosco founded the estate in 2002, ending a long arrangement of selling the family's harvested grapes to a local cooperative and choosing instead to vinify and bottle under their own name.

Their children Andrea and Gloria now manage the vineyard and cellar alongside the founding couple. The range holds two Soave Classico wines: Roccolo del Durlo, fermented in steel and aged eight months on fine lees, and I Rasoli, from a single parcel of Garganega vines planted around 1800 and aged in terracotta amphora. Both are 100% Garganega. Neither is what the appellation's flat-plain reputation would suggest.

Known for

100% Garganega on steep volcanic basalt in Brognoligo; CERVIM heroic viticulture; lees-aged Soave Classico.

Notable facts

The story

Vines older than Italian unification

When Andrea and Gloria Dal Bosco began researching the estate's historic parcels in detail, they found that the vines in the Carbonare plot traced back to around 1800, planted as a local response to phylloxera before the louse reached this corner of the Veneto in force. The detail that stopped them was not the age alone: the vines had never been grafted onto American rootstock, the standard solution adopted across almost all of Europe after phylloxera devastated vineyards in the late nineteenth century. Brognoligo's isolation had kept these vines alive in a form that nearly every other vineyard on the continent had abandoned. The family named the wine I Rasoli and aged it in terracotta amphora. The grapes that go into it come from vines that predate Italian unification.

From the atlas

Azienda Agricola Le Battistelle

At A Glance

The Producer

Le Battistelle farms 14 hectares of Garganega on the steep volcanic slopes of Brognoligo, a quiet fraction of Monteforte d'Alpone inside the Soave Classico DOCG. The parcels are too steep for machinery, hand-harvested on terraces held in place by dry-stone walls, and carry the CERVIM heroic viticulture designation given to vineyards whose gradient and fragmentation leave mechanical work impossible. The estate produces nothing but Garganega: every cuvée, every vintage, drawn from the same variety on the same volcanic ground.

Gelmino and Cristina Dal Bosco founded Le Battistelle in 2002, ending a long arrangement of selling the family's harvested grapes to a local cooperative and choosing instead to vinify and bottle under their own name. Their children Andrea and Gloria now manage the vineyard and cellar alongside the founding couple. Four people, one grape, one DOCG.

Place

Soave Classico is the original, tightly defined heart of the broader Soave zone in the Veneto, east of Verona. The DOCG designation covers the historic villages where Garganega has grown on volcanic soil for centuries, and the Classico distinction separates these hillside parcels from the flatter, extended Soave DOC territory that expanded through the latter half of the twentieth century.

Brognoligo sits within that Classico core. The area has remained largely free of industrial activity, and the volcanic basalt beneath the parcels gives wines a mineral character that flat alluvial ground cannot replicate. Garganega grown on these slopes ripens slowly, retains natural acidity, and builds mid-palate weight. The steepness that earns the heroic viticulture designation also concentrates the fruit: roots dig deep, yields stay low, and the wine carries more than the appellation's reputation for easy, light white.

Soil And Site

The 14 hectares are divided across multiple small parcels on steep volcanic slopes in the Brognoligo fraction. The soil is basaltic in origin, dark and mineral-rich, with good drainage on the inclined terrain. Pergola-trained vines work the slopes in the traditional Veronese manner, spreading canopy to manage the intense summer heat while maintaining airflow.

Because no machine can work these gradients, harvest is done by hand, often with workers carrying grapes by shoulder harness down sections of the slope that no cart can reach. The dry-stone walls that terrace the hillside are part of the farm's working infrastructure, not decoration. The Brognoligo fraction has no industrial neighbours and sits in a bowl of agricultural land that keeps ambient conditions stable.

Story

Before 2002, the Dal Bosco family grew Garganega and handed the harvest over to a local cooperative, as many small Veneto farming families did through the late twentieth century. Cooperative selling gave growers a guaranteed outlet and removed the capital and risk of winemaking, but it also meant the family had no label, no wine of their own, no way to express what their particular parcels on Brognoligo's volcanic slopes produced.

In 2002, Gelmino and Cristina Dal Bosco ended that arrangement. They kept the grapes, bought or arranged the equipment to vinify, and began bottling under the Le Battistelle name. The wines that came from that first generation are now managed by a second: Andrea and Gloria Dal Bosco have taken on the cellar and vineyard work alongside their parents, extending the project without changing its logic. One grape, one place, two generations deep.

Vineyards And Cellar

The vines are pergola-trained across fragmented parcels on volcanic basalt. Pergola training, traditional in the Veneto, spreads the canopy horizontally above the fruit and provides shade during the hottest weeks of summer, moderating ripening and preserving acidity in Garganega. The steep gradient means every intervention is manual: pruning, canopy management, and harvest all done by hand.

In the cellar, Le Battistelle works with two distinct approaches depending on the cuvée. Roccolo del Durlo is fermented in temperature-controlled steel tanks over approximately 25 days, then left on fine lees with regular batonnage for approximately eight months. The lees contact adds texture and a slight broadening of the mid-palate without adding oak or weight; the steel preserves the aromatic freshness. I Rasoli takes a different route: aged in terracotta amphora rather than steel, a choice that allows slow oxidative exchange without imparting wood flavour, and one that suits the mineral character of the oldest parcels.

Wines

Le Battistelle makes two Soave Classico wines, both from 100% Garganega.

Soave Classico Roccolo del Durlo is the main-volume wine and the clearest statement of what steel fermentation and lees ageing do with volcanic Garganega. Straw yellow with vivid golden reflections. The nose opens on yellow fruit, peach and apricot, with citrus and a delicate thread of balsamic herb running underneath. The palate is full and enveloping, the balsamic herbal note becoming more pronounced mid-mouth, and the lees contact giving a slight creaminess to the finish. The 2024 vintage shows wildflowers alongside stone fruit and a clear mineral line that runs from the first sip through to the close.

Soave Classico I Rasoli comes from a single parcel called Carbonare in the Brognoligo U.G.A. The vines in this parcel date to around 1800 and survive without American rootstock grafting, a botanical rarity that sets I Rasoli apart from almost every other wine in the DOCG. Aged in terracotta amphora, the wine develops a mineral character that sources describe as the dominant register: less fruit-forward than Roccolo del Durlo, more austere, with the kind of dry edge that old vines on volcanic basalt tend to produce.

In The Glass

Garganega on volcanic soil at Le Battistelle produces wines with genuine presence: not the light, watery Soave that gave the appellation a difficult decade in the 1980s, but white wines with body in the mid-palate, a firm acid line, and aromatic complexity that continues to develop after opening.

Roccolo del Durlo opens with stone fruit and citrus on the nose, then delivers a mouth-filling palate where the lees contact rounds the texture without softening the acid. The balsamic herb thread that appears in the aroma becomes more structural in the mouth, adding length and a slightly savoury close. The minerality, particularly in the 2024, rises through the mid-palate and keeps the finish clean and long rather than fat.

I Rasoli is drier and more mineral-driven: the amphora ageing strips out the softening influence of lees batonnage and replaces it with a firm, chalky edge. Old-vine Garganega on volcanic basalt, without the buffer of American rootstock, has a directness that the Roccolo del Durlo does not attempt.

A Bottle To Understand It

Soave Classico Roccolo del Durlo. Twenty-five days of fermentation in steel, eight months on fine lees with regular batonnage: that process builds a white wine with real mid-palate weight and an aromatic range that moves from stone fruit and citrus to balsamic herb to mineral close. The texture is broader than most Soave Classico at this price, but the acid line keeps the wine from feeling heavy. Start here to understand what volcanic Garganega tastes like when the cellar amplifies rather than masks it.

Anecdote

At some point before 2002, the family planted a parcel in Brognoligo with Garganega from old stock and never knew exactly how old the vines were. When Andrea and Gloria began researching the estate's historic parcels in detail, they discovered that the vines in the Carbonare plot traced back to around 1800, planted likely as a local response to phylloxera before the pest reached this corner of the Veneto in force. The extraordinary detail was not the age alone: the vines had never been grafted onto American rootstock, the standard phylloxera solution adopted across almost all of Europe after the louse devastated vineyards in the late nineteenth century. Brognoligo's isolation had kept these vines alive in a form that nearly every other vineyard on the continent had abandoned. The family named the cuvée I Rasoli and began ageing it in terracotta amphora. The grapes that go into it come from vines that predate Italian unification.

Final Word

Le Battistelle is a focused family estate with a clear argument: one grape, one volcanic zone, two wines that show what patient farming and careful cellar work produce from ground that most people in Soave Classico stopped taking seriously forty years ago. The I Rasoli vines alone make the domaine worth knowing.

Sources

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