Even as diehard devotees of Italian white wines, we never thought we’d say the following: You absolutely must experience this biodynamic Soave bombshell. The honest truth is that these Garganega-based wines rarely enter conversations about Italy’s finest whites. Ninety-nine percent of Soave is pleasant but forgettable. Filippi’s “Monteseroni” is the unforgettable 1%.
Perhaps such singular greatness is to be expected from a boundary-pushing producer like Filippo Filippi, farmer of the highest-elevation vineyards in the DOC and the first to be Certified Organic. Still, the masterful interplay between golden orchard fruit, enveloping texture, and bristling minerality in today’s 2020 “Monteseroni” caught us completely off guard. Frankly, it’s the best Soave we’ve tasted since opening our doors, not just a benchmark for the region but a dead serious white wine on any terms. Lightning has struck in Soave, and if our decade-long hunt for greatness here is any indication, it’ll be a long time before you see it again—unless it’s another bottling from Filippi. Enjoy!
Filippo Filippi is a total outlier in Soave. Organic farming is still rare here in these volcanic hills, yet Filippo has been certified since 2007 and has taken further steps to become biodynamic. While his neighbors routinely rip up low-yielding old vines, he lovingly tends to Garganega vines now approaching 70 years old. A market-driven winemaker would clear every acre of his land to plant vineyards, but Filippo ensures that his vines are surrounded by native forest and green growth, improving biodiversity. Here in Soave, where so many producers are still content to turn out oceans of light, innocuous wines for nearby Verona, Filippo is that rare thing: a true artisan.
Filippo can trace his roots in the Colli Scaligeri subzone of Soave back to the 1300s. Although the property had long contained vineyards, winemaking didn’t begin in earnest until the early 20th century. Filippo began bottling the family’s wine under his own name in 2003 and now bottles each of his vineyards separately. Today’s “Monteseroni” is his most prized site: This “mountain of wild roosters” perches at over 1,000 feet in elevation next to an old-growth oak forest. Here, Filippo’s Garganega, planted in the 1950s, faces due south, receiving full daytime sunlight before cooling drastically at night. Additionally, the vines are rooted in chalky limestone—rare in the Soave—which imbues them with more freshness and mineral verve.
After hand harvesting, Filippo presses the grapes long and slow, then ferments (including malo) with wild yeasts in stainless steel tanks. Further distinguishing himself from other Soave producers, he doesn’t bottle according to a set schedule, but only when he feels the wine has aged on its lees to full maturity. The 2020 saw 14 months with minimal lees stirring. It was bottled without filtration.
Treat Filippo’s 2020 Soave “Monteseroni” as you would a great French white, cool but not ice cold. It pours a deep yellow with flecks of silver and gold, the nose unfurling into a wash of orchard fruit and rocks: quince, pear skin, bruised apricot, Granny Smith apple flesh, lemon oil, raw honey, and pulverized chalk minerality. Despite being only 11.5% alcohol and incredibly easy to drink, it’s also oozing with generous textures, the golden fruit flavors resonating on the finish. Think seriously great Vouvray if it were grown seaside and you’re close, but there’s a soulful, almost rustic quality here that sings loudly of the Veneto hills. I don’t know if I’d ever before been moved by a bottle of Soave, yet here we are. Do not miss this stuff!
