The name Garganuda is a wink: a portmanteau of Garganega, Gambellara's signature white grape, and the Italian word nuda, meaning naked, a fitting label for wines stripped of additives.
Backstory
Garganuda was created by Andrea Fiorini Carbognin with the support of his brother-in-law, the widely respected Veneto vigneron Stefano Menti. Andrea's natural-wine epiphany came through Menti, inspiring him to launch his own project alongside the family's longstanding Menti estate, which dates to the end of the 19th century.
The Region
The wines come from Gambellara, in the Veneto roughly halfway between Verona and Venice. The area is around 90 percent volcanic in origin, and its basalt-rich soils give tightly structured, mineral-edged wines with stony perfumes.
Vineyards & Farming
Garganuda draws on small plots of old vines converted to organic and biodynamic farming. Flocks of sheep wander the vineyards to manage the cover crops, part of a deliberately low-input approach. The grapes are Garganega for the whites and the local red varieties for the Valpolicella.
Winemaking
Only spontaneous yeasts are used at fermentation, with as little cellar intervention as possible. For the Garganuda whites, wild-fermented Garganega is pressed into large-format concrete for around eighteen months before bottling, unfined and unfiltered, with only a touch of sulfur added.
The Wines
The range centers on a naked, volcanic Soave from Garganega alongside a Valpolicella, both transparent expressions of Gambellara's basalt terroir.
