Why it matters
The producer
If you pick up a bottle of Vulcaia Fumé and a bottle of Bradisismo, you are holding two entirely different Italian wine zones in your hands, though both carry the same name. Inama farms volcanic hillside parcels east of Verona in the Soave Classico zone for its whites, and limestone-clay slopes south of Vicenza in the Colli Berici for its reds. One estate, two soils, two grapes, two appellations.
Giuseppe Inama began buying parcels on Monte Foscarino in the late 1950s, before the estate had a commercial label. His son Stefano formalized production in 1991, moving from glass demijohns filled for family use to labeled bottles sold through proper channels. The third generation, three brothers named Matteo, Alessio, and Luca, arrived between 2018 and 2020, each carrying formation gathered elsewhere: Matteo from the UK wine trade, Alessio from international consultancy, Luca from Bordeaux estates. They did not arrive to coast. They divided every vineyard into micro-plots, mapped subsoil composition across the estate, and tracked how vine behavior shifted from parcel to parcel.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Soave Classico is a hillside subzone within the larger Soave DOC, east of Verona, built on volcanic basalt that dates to ancient flows through the Veneto hills. The Classico designation was created to separate the original hill vineyards from the high-yield plains production that expanded during the 1970s and 1980s. Monte Foscarino sits inside that Classico core. Garganega grown on volcanic basalt here produces white wine with mineral lift and a lighter phenolic weight than the same grape grown on the plains below.
The Colli Berici is a separate appellation entirely, a range of limestone and clay hills south of Vicenza. Carmenère, a grape that largely disappeared from Bordeaux after the phylloxera crisis in the nineteenth century, found a footing in the Colli Berici and survived there. Inama's red wine programme is built around that planted history.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Hand harvesting drives fruit selection across both zones. Stefano Inama's emphasis on vine health as the foundation of good wine, growing a healthy vine without needing to add anything in the cellar, places the work in the vineyard before anywhere else. Minimal intervention in the cellar follows from that: if the fruit arrives in good condition, less needs to happen to it afterward.
Vulcaia Fumé, the Sauvignon Blanc from Monte Foscarino, is aged on lees. Lees contact adds texture and weight to the mid-palate without obscuring the aromatic lift of the grape or the mineral character of the volcanic soil. This white has more body than the varietal alone would deliver.
Wines to know
The range in view
Iname's range runs across two geographies and two colour registers.
In Soave Classico, the entry point is Garganega-based wine under the Soave Classico appellation label. Garganega here, on volcanic basalt, gives a white wine with a clean stone-fruit core, pale floral notes, and an acidity that keeps the mid-palate fresh and the finish lifted. It is not a heavy wine.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Vulcaia Fumé is the right first bottle. It is Sauvignon Blanc from Monte Foscarino, aged on lees, and it shows what Inama does that no other producer in the zone replicates: Sauvignon Blanc on volcanic soil, handled with minimal intervention, with lees contact adding body without obscuring the grape's aromatic character. Pale green-gold in the glass. On the nose, green herb, lime pith, and white fruit with a clean mineral line underneath. In the mouth, the acidity is firm and the mid-palate has more weight and density than the aroma suggests. The finish is long and stony.