Corte Mainente (Soave, VENETO)
When it comes to red wines of the Veneto, the late, great Giuseppe Quintarelli rarely had an equal with his 62 years of Valpolicella, Amarone, and Recioto di Valpolicella. In the nearby white wine village of Soave, another post-war Veneto legend named Ugo Mainente just bottled his 60th vintage of Bianco Secco, and we are excited to introduce it to the US for the very first time.
With less than ten hectares of vines, Mainente’s wines are largely unknown outside the region, but with the recent addition of Ugo’s two sons to the family Corte, this is all about to change. Their latest vintages have received top marks from Jancis Robinson, Gambero Rosso, Falstaff, Wine Enthusiast, and Decanter, and in 2019, Forbes named their Soave one of the “Best Italian Wines of the Year.”
Work in the cellar is clean, but no-frills, with the Mainente brothers preferring concrete over inox (when possible) but experimenting with larger casks for certain cuvées. For our opening order, they agreed to let us pick our favorite Soave vineyard from their holdings, and create a bottling exclusively for the US, which we chose to declassify to “Bianco Veronese IGT” to highlight the larger Verona region over the Byzantine Soave and her 33 recognized crus.
Giorgio Gioco was the famous chef and owner of 12 Apostoli in Verona whose handwriting adorned Quintarelli’s original hand-drawn labels. Giorgio and his wife Jole earned two of the first Michelin stars in Italy, and today their 300-year-old restaurant is still considered the pinnacle of classic Veronese gastronomy. He is also a longtime friend of Ugo Mainente, and at special family gatherings, Ugo spends four days making Gioco’s recipe for Polenta e Bacalà, a classic dish of the Veneto, and a brilliant match with his insanely delicious Garganega-based white. After sharing this dish with Ugo’s son Davide earlier this year, we agreed to design a label for our US bottling that would pay homage to this handmade spirit of their work.
Mainente’s Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave vines are planted on steep terraces overlooking the town, and with 60-80 years of vine age, the flavors they coax from the patchwork terroir of clay, black volcanic fossils, and pure, white limestone conjure up a “steelier” Bourgogne Blanc, but with the flavors of white melon, orange zest, and bitter almond, so prized in the whites of the misty Po Valley.
Ugo Mainente is a longtime Maestro of Veneto whites, but given the off-the-beaten-path status of the Soave region, the price is absurdly low for the quality of his work. We are honored to represent his Corte Mainente exclusively in the US beginning with this 2021 vintage, and our bottling produced just 400 cases arriving in New York this August.
Corte Mainente 2022 Bianco Secco (pdf tech sheet)
Corte Mainente 2022 Soave Classico Pigno (pdf tech sheet)
Corte Mainente 2021 Soave Classico Tenda (pdf tech sheet)