Monte del Frà
At A Glance
- **Country**
- Italy
- **Region**
- Veneto
- **Appellations**
- Custoza DOC, Valpolicella DOC, Soave DOC
- **Key Grapes**
- Garganega, Trebbiano Toscana, Cortese, Incrocio Manzoni
- **Founded**
- 1958
- **Flagship**
- Custoza Superiore Ca' del Magro
The Producer
Monte del Frà works across Custoza, Valpolicella, and Soave from a hillside property south of Lake Garda that the Bonomo family has worked since 1958. That breadth is unusual. Most estates in this part of northeastern Italy anchor to one denomination. Monte del Frà works in Custoza, Valpolicella, and Soave simultaneously, with Custoza Superiore Ca' del Magro, which has held Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri recognition for twelve consecutive years.
The Custoza Superiore Ca' del Magro is that bottle. It takes grapes from the oldest parcels on the Monte del Frà hill, carries the Superiore designation within the Custoza DOC, and has held Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri recognition for twelve consecutive years. Tre Bicchieri is Gambero Rosso's annual top tier, awarded to a small fraction of the wines submitted for review each year. Ca' del Magro also appeared in Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2021. The estate's third-generation voice, Marica Bonomo, frames the house position plainly: the winemaker is not the protagonist. The wines are made to carry terroir forward, not individual technique.
Place
Custoza is a white blend DOC in the southern Veneto, lying between the eastern shore of Lake Garda and the city of Verona. It is built around local Veronese grape varieties rather than the international varieties that dominate much of northern Italy's commercial wine production. The lake moderates temperatures on the surrounding hills, keeping nights cool through the growing season and slowing ripening enough to preserve acidity in the grapes.
The Monte del Frà hill sits within this DOC, and the Custoza appellation is what the estate's best wine is named for. The Ca' del Magro is not a village name or a vineyard name; it is the Superiore-level cuvée from the estate's oldest parcels within Custoza. The Ca' del Magro label points to a specific tier within the appellation: higher minimum alcohol, longer ageing, and hand-selected fruit.
The other two appellations extend the estate's reach across the wider Verona zone. Valpolicella comes from hills northeast of Verona. Soave occupies the hills east of Verona. Each has its own grape logic and its own DOC or DOCG boundaries.
Soil And Site
The Monte del Frà hill itself gives the estate its name and its Custoza address. The Custoza zone sits on glacially influenced soils south of Lake Garda, a mix of clay, limestone, and moraine material left by the lake's prehistoric retreat. These soils drain reasonably well and hold enough mineral content to carry through into the white blends grown on them. The lake proximity keeps the growing season long and the diurnal temperature range wide, which slows sugar accumulation and holds acidity in the grapes through harvest.
Story
Massimo Bonomo rented the Monte del Frà hillside in 1958 and ran it as a working mixed farm: wheat, strawberries, peaches, and grapes, the way farms in the Verona countryside operated for generations. Wine was part of the operation, but not all of it. The estate sold grapes and bulk wine alongside its other crops.
His sons Eligio and Claudio took over and made a single, decisive change. On 8 August 1988, they converted the property entirely to wine. The mixed farm ended on a specific date. From that morning forward, everything the estate grew was for the glass.
The conversion built out over years, eventually spanning 205 hectares (137 properties and 68 leased hectares) across multiple Veronese appellations. The Ca' del Magro's critical record built through that same period, accumulating twelve consecutive Tre Bicchieri as the estate matured its Custoza work.
Vineyards And Cellar
The Ca' del Magro is made from hand-selected grapes drawn from the oldest parcels on the Monte del Frà hill. Within the Custoza DOC, the Superiore category requires a higher minimum alcohol level and a longer ageing period than the standard Custoza bottling. Hand selection at harvest means the blend is built from the most developed fruit, not the full parcel yield, which concentrates the aromatic depth and the texture of the finished wine.
The Custoza blend draws on Garganega, Trebbiano Toscana, Cortese, and Incrocio Manzoni. Blending these varieties rather than bottling single-grape wines is the Custoza DOC's defining character.
Wines
The Ca' del Magro sits at the top of the Custoza range. Below it, the estate produces a standard Custoza Bianco DOC from the same appellation's grape mix, with less selection and shorter ageing. The Superiore level narrows the fruit sourcing to the oldest Monte del Frà parcels and extends the cellar time, which shows in a rounder texture and more developed aromatic complexity than the entry Custoza.
In The Glass
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with the Custoza Superiore Ca' del Magro. It is a white blend from the oldest parcels on the Monte del Frà hill, made from Garganega, Trebbiano Toscana, Cortese, and Incrocio Manzoni under the Custoza DOC's Superiore rules. The wine is dry, hand-selected, and aged longer than the standard Custoza. Twelve consecutive Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri place it clearly at the estate's top, but at Custoza prices it sits far below what equivalent critical recognition commands in Barolo or Barbaresco.
Anecdote
On 8 August 1988, Eligio and Claudio Bonomo closed the books on the wheat, the strawberries, and the peaches. Their father Massimo had rented the Monte del Frà hillside thirty years earlier and run it as a working mixed farm, the way properties around Verona had always operated: a spread of crops, wine among them but not central to them. The brothers decided otherwise. From that morning, the property grew only grapes. The date is remembered precisely because it was a formal commitment, unusual enough in a region where mixed farming persisted well into the 1990s to be worth marking. The conversion took years to complete, eventually spanning 205 hectares (137 properties and 68 leased hectares) across multiple Veronese appellations, but the direction was fixed from that day, and the Ca' del Magro was already becoming the estate's signature wine.
Final Word
The Ca' del Magro has the critical record to sit alongside wines from more famous Veneto addresses, but it carries the price of a DOC that has not yet caught up in market recognition. The Ca' del Magro has held Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri for twelve consecutive years and appeared in Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2021.