Ca’ dei Frati Brolettino Lugana 2024

On the southern shore of Lake Garda, where the water cools the summers and the mornings come in soft off the lake, the Dal Cero family have made Lugana their life's work. Ca' dei Frati takes its name from the friars who once tended vines on this land, and their old coat of arms still marks the cellar door. Since 1939, four generations have farmed here, coaxing remarkable depth from Turbiana, the region's native white grape.

Where much Lugana is made to be drunk young and forgotten, theirs is built to last. The lake lends the wines a bright, saline energy. The clay soils give them weight and grip. In the cellar the family work the fruit gently and shelter it from oxygen, from crush to cork, so the aromatics arrive pure and the wines age with grace rather than fade.

The range reads like a study of everything Lugana can be. I Frati is the benchmark: crisp, citrus-bright, endlessly drinkable. Brolettino takes the same grape into barrel and comes back fuller, rounder, quietly serious. Around them sit the wines that show the family's wider reach, from the white blend Pratto to the traditional-method Cuvée dei Frati and the pale, poised Rosa dei Frati.

That ambition now stretches beyond the lake. In the Valpolicella hills the family craft their Pietro Dal Cero Amarone, a wine of depth and warmth made with the same care as everything they touch. Few houses have done more to prove Lugana belongs among Italy's serious whites. Fewer still make it look so effortless.