Soave Geography & Climate

The town stands at the eastern edge of the province of Verona, where the flat alluvial plain of the Adige runs up against the first hills of the Lessini.

Its setting is a single isolated hill, crowned by the castle, with the walled town at its foot and the plain opening out south and west toward Verona, 25 km away.

The hills behind are volcanic -- basalt and tuff from ancient eruptions -- and this is the defining fact of the place. The dark, mineral-rich soils of the Classico zone above Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone produce a different wine from the calcareous and alluvial ground on the plain, and the distinction is written into the appellation.

The Alpone valley runs north into the hills; the Val d'Illasi lies west. The terrain rises quickly from around 30 metres on the plain to 300 or 400 in the vineyard zone.

Summers (June-August) are hot and humid on the plain, regularly above thirty degrees, with thunderstorms breaking off the Lessini in the afternoons.

Winters (December-February) are cold and damp, with hard frost, persistent fog on the flat and occasional snow. The hills are often clear when the plain is not.

Spring and autumn are the pleasant seasons, and September -- warm days, cool nights -- is the condition Garganega needs to ripen slowly, which is why harvest here runs late.

The Classico hills are cooler and better ventilated than the plain, and hold their diurnal range better; this, along with the volcanic soil, is the technical case for the hillside zone.