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Corte Gardoni

Corte Gardoni Bardolino Chiaretto Nichesole 2025

$26.00 ~~Regular price:$27.00~~

Style: Dry, light-bodied rosé; pale and delicate with crisp acidity and a saline mineral finish
Grapes & Terroir: 50% Corvina, 25% Rondinella, 25% Molinara/Barbera/Sangiovese; glacial morainic soils in Valeggio sul Mincio, southeast of Lake Garda; Bardolino Chiaretto DOC
Winemaking: Half direct press, half saignée; stainless steel fermentation; no malolactic conversion; early bottling to preserve aromatic freshness
Serving temperature & decanting: Serve at 46-50°F; no decanting needed
Pairing: Grilled lake trout with herbs
Similar to: Provençal rosé, lighter Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo

Corte Gardoni Bardolino Chiaretto Nichesole 2025 is a dry rosé produced by the Piccoli family at their estate in Valeggio sul Mincio, on the morainic hills southeast of Lake Garda in the Veneto. The blend is 50% Corvina, 25% Rondinella, and 25% Molinara, Barbera, and Sangiovese, grown on the estate's stony glacial moraine soils. Half of the wine is made by direct press and the other half by saignée, both fermented in stainless steel to preserve freshness. Corte Gardoni Bardolino Chiaretto Nichesole 2025 is bottled under the Bardolino Chiaretto DOC.

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.

Important Compliance Requirements

FedEx and other carriers we might occasionally use can only deliver wine to customers who are 21 years or older. Someone must be at the address to receive the package, carriers don't just drop a package and leave. They must ensure the person receiving the wine is 21 or older.

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If a package is returned to us after three failed delivery attempts, we can only re-ship the wine upon payment of a re-shipping fee, to be determined based on the shipping address and number of bottles. Shipping wine is extremely expensive. We are sorry about this, but we have no other choice. Please make sure there's always someone at the address you enter as your shipping address.

If you'd like to receive a refund for a package that was returned to us after FedEx made three delivery attempts, we can do that but we must keep a $20 refund fee; FedEx charges us a lot of money for returns, unfortunately, I can't stress this enough.

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Heat/Frost damage

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Placed an order. What next?

1. You will receive an order confirmation email with your order summary.*

2. As soon as your order ships from the warehouse, usually within 2-3 business days, this applies to all shipping rates, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with your tracking information. 2DAY shipping refers to shipping time; we still need 2-3 business days to prepare an order. We need to pick and pack, QA, add printed collateral, and palletize the orders.

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4. The carrier will attempt delivery a maximum of 3 times. After 3 delivery attempts, your package will be sent back to our warehouse.**

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**If delivery is attempted 3 times without success, or if you fail to retrieve your package from the carrier depot by the stated deadline, the shipping fee will not be refunded to the customer.

Returns Policy

If you are not satisfied with your purchase, please contact us at (424) 414-2040 or via e-mail at hello@primalwine.com between 9 am and 5 pm Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Sunday, we would like to understand and try to solve your concerns. We can offer refunds only as store credit.

Corte Gardoni Bardolino Chiaretto Nichesole 2025

$26.00~~$27.00~~

Producer profile

Corte Gardoni

Corte Gardoni is a family estate in Valeggio sul Mincio, on the morainic hills southeast of Lake Garda, run by the Piccoli family. The family has been cultivating vines in this area since the 1600s, making Corte Gardoni one of the longest-established vine-growing families in the Bardolino zone. The agricultural estate covers around 54 hectares in total, of which 25 are planted to vine and 20 to orchard, with the remainder divided between olive grove, woodland, and arable land.

Corte Gardoni was formally established as a winery in 1980, when Gianni Piccoli decided that his grapes, carefully farmed at low yields on the stony slopes of the moraine, would no longer be sold in bulk to industrial wineries. It was a contrarian decision at a time when the Bardolino zone had little critical standing and cooperatives were pushing producers to replant with international varieties. Gianni held firm, retaining indigenous grapes such as Corvina, Garganega, Rondinella, and Molinara, and built a reputation for wines that expressed the specific character of his morainic terroir. He passed away in 2020 with nearly fifty vintages behind him at the helm of Corte Gardoni.

The estate is now run by his three sons, Mattia, Stefano, and Andrea, who had already taken over daily operations several years before Gianni's death. Under Mattia's direction, Corte Gardoni has become a reference point for the Bardolino and Custoza appellations, with the wines appearing on the lists of Michelin-starred restaurants across Italy. The focus remains on native varieties and on wines that are honest expressions of their DOC rather than internationally styled alternatives.

The Nichesole Chiaretto is the estate's flagship rosé, produced each vintage from the same blend of Corvina, Rondinella, and a small proportion of Molinara, Barbera, and Sangiovese. The name Nichesole refers to a locality within the estate. Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant has been the wine's primary US importer for decades, describing Corte Gardoni as its longest-running Italian import relationship.

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Wine region

Veneto, Italy

Bardolino is a DOC wine zone on the southeastern shore of Lake Garda, in the province of Verona in Italy's Veneto region. The DOC was established in 1968 and today covers around 2,700 hectares across 16 municipalities. The landscape is shaped almost entirely by glacial activity: the morainic hills that define the area are the remnant deposits of ancient glaciers that carved out the Garda basin, leaving behind a mosaic of gravel, clay, sand, limestone, and pebbles. Soils are sedimentary and gravel-based, and the morainic character imparts a distinctive saline quality to the wines.

Lake Garda, Italy's largest lake at roughly 143 square miles, plays a central role in the region's climate. The lake moderates temperatures throughout the year, keeping summers cooler and winters milder than the surrounding continental plain. Predictable thermal winds, including the "peler" from the north and the "ora" from the south, provide consistent ventilation across the vineyards, aiding canopy management and disease resistance. The result is a growing season that favors freshness and aromatics over concentration.

The dominant grape variety is Corvina Veronese, the same variety used in Amarone and Valpolicella to the east. In Bardolino it is vinified without appassimento, producing light, bright, low-tannin reds and the pale rosé style known as Chiaretto. Rondinella and Molinara are common blending partners, contributing floral notes and acidity respectively.

The Chiaretto di Bardolino DOC was formalized as a distinct designation in 2021. The style is defined by its pale color, saline mineral character, and fresh fruit profile. In 2018, three sub-zones were introduced: La Rocca along the lake shore, Montebaldo in the northern foothills, and Sommacampagna in the southern morainic hills, the area where Corte Gardoni is based. Valeggio sul Mincio, where the estate sits, lies at the southernmost edge of the DOC zone, where the glacial soils are particularly stony and well-drained.

Frequently asked question

When is my order shipping?

We are doing your best to ship your order in 2-3 business days.

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.

Do I have to sign upon delivery?

Yes, someone 21 years or older must sign for the package.

Signature on delivery is mandatory for wine deliveries. Please make sure someone is at the shipping address to sign for the package.

If applicable, please consider delivering the package to a business address to ensure someone is available to sign for the package.

We also have the option of delivering the package to a Carrier's store for pickup. Please reach out to us to coordinate.

Carrier will try to delivery a package up to three times before returning the package to us.

See here our shipping policy.

What if I miss a delivery?

Worry not, we have options, but please read carefully.

If you miss a delivery and a package gets returned to us we have two options:

1) Reship the package right away: due to the very high cost of shipping and returns, we must charge a re-shipping fee to be determined based on package size and shipping destination.

2) Consolidate the returned package with your next order: this option is free of charge and it's the most popular option.

See here our shipping policy.

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