Blog: Cà dei Frati | Lombardy

At Cà dei Frati, the future began decades ago: At that time, Pietro Dal Cero's sons Igino and Franco, as well as his daughter Anna Maria, began to take care directly and full-time of the winery, which was founded back in 1940 and was one of the first and very few in the Lugana area to consistently focus on quality production, and which they also immediately redesigned from the ground up. Today, Cà dei Frati, near the romantic town of Sirmione, presents itself with modern facilities and a well-tended winery, whose grapes are vinified separately plot by plot. To the existing infrastructure has recently been added a new vaulted cellar for barriques, where some of the red and white wines of the farm are aged. The most famous and noteworthy is certainly the Lugana Brolettino, which, unlike the basic version I Frati, is aged for six months in wooden barrels, with its structure can withstand even a few years of aging and can be described without exaggeration as one of the best white wines of the Lake Garda area. However, the other wines of the winery are only slightly inferior to it: Ronchedone, for example, a blend of such unusual varieties as Groppello, Sangiovese, Barbera and Marzemino, or Pratto, made from Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc and aged for six months in barriques. - Gerardo [TS11/22]

"Drink the Lugana young and you taste its freshness. Drink Lugana after two or three years, and you enjoy its richness. Drink it after ten years, and you will be surprised that it still bears youthful traits. A Lugana retains its character, which is rare in wines. Once you have tasted it, provided you are a good taster, it will remain in your memory forever. A great painter and a great musician are also recognized in his works: every time you see or hear them, you realize abruptly: it's him." - Luigi Veronelli