Why it matters
The producer
Zenato is a family estate in Veneto making wine from two landscapes with almost nothing in common. Santa Cristina sits on the flat clay shore of Lake Garda in the Lugana appellation, where a single white grape, Trebbiano di Lugana, grows on mineral-heavy glacial soils shaped by retreating ice. Costalunga stands forty kilometres east in the Valpolicella Classico hills above Verona, at 450 metres, on Jurassic limestone and Terra Rossa stone.
Sergio Zenato founded the estate in 1960 with his wife Carla. His early focus was Lugana, then a commercially overlooked lakeside appellation. He subsequently acquired land in Sant'Ambrogio, one of the five villages in the Valpolicella Classico zone, and built Costalunga from undeveloped hillside. The second generation now divides the business: Nadia Zenato leads sales and marketing, Alberto Zenato oversees production.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Lugana is a DOC appellation on the southern shore of Lake Garda, split between Lombardy and Veneto. The lake functions as a thermal buffer: it moderates winter cold and summer heat, keeping the growing season long enough for Trebbiano di Lugana to ripen slowly and retain natural acidity. The grape has a local synonym, Turbiana, and is the only variety permitted for Lugana DOC white wine. These two names refer to the same grape.
Valpolicella Classico is the historic heart of the Valpolicella appellation, covering five designated villages in the hills west of Verona. Sant'Ambrogio is one of those five. At altitude, the growing season is cool enough to preserve the bright fruit and firm acidity that underpin the Valpolicella range. The hillside position also determines the winemaking options: drying, which concentrates sugars and tannins, works at Costalunga in a way it could not at the flat lake estate.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Zenato plants indigenous varieties at high density across both estates. Grapes are harvested by hand. At Santa Cristina, Trebbiano di Lugana draws on the clay soils' natural moisture retention, which supports slow, even ripening and produces wines with body and mineral weight rather than the lean, neutral character of thin-soil whites.
At Costalunga, the Amarone grapes undergo appassimento: after harvest, the fruit is laid out to dry slowly, concentrating sugars, colour and tannin before fermentation. The resulting wine ferments to near dryness at high alcohol, with deeply extracted dried-fruit character. Ripassa uses the dried grape skins left over from Amarone production: base Valpolicella wine referments on those skins, picking up additional weight, dried-fruit flavour and tannin in a process called ripasso. The general ageing protocol for Ripassa runs 18 to 20 months in French oak.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range spans two appellations and four wine categories.
Lugana DOC (Santa Cristina): A single white wine from Trebbiano di Lugana on clay soils. The grape produces medium-bodied white wine with a mineral edge, gentle almond and citrus character, and the textural weight the clay ground builds in. Acidity stays sharp because of the lake's moderating climate. This is a white that holds its shape across a meal rather than fading mid-table.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Ripassa Valpolicella Superiore is the right first bottle. It is a Valpolicella-appellation red made by refermentation on dried Amarone grape skins, which gives it more body, darker fruit and firmer tannin than the Classico Superiore, at a fraction of the price of the Amarone. In the glass it delivers dried cherry, tobacco and dark plum on a full, warm frame, with oak-derived texture and a long finish. Start here.