Costadilà 330 S.l.m. 2021

The Wine: Bianco 330 S.l.m. 2021

Costadila' Bianco 330 S.l.m. is a white natural wine made from Glera Veneto native grape varietal farmed organically. Bianco 330 S.l.m. - S.l.m. means Above Sea Level in Italian, the elevation of the parcel - is made with the ancestral method, which means it's refermented in the bottle (it's a Col Fondo wine). Spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts, unfined, unfiltered, no added sulfites. The legend of Costadila' continues and we couldn't be happier.

The Producer: Costadilà

Costadilà ('the hillside over there') was founded in 2006 by the late Ernesto Cattel and a group of partners in Tarzo, Veneto. The Costadilà project's goal is to valorize and rejuvenate Tarzo's rich agricultural traditions by reintroducing natural farming to the region.

The scope goes well beyond wine, with a strong emphasis on polyculture: a farm where vines, fruits, vegetables, cereals, and livestock coexist on the same plots of land. Completing the cycle, the produce grown from Costadilà land is then used and sold in local businesses.

Everything at Costadilà is farmed organically. As far as the wines, they are fermented with native yeasts until completely dry, then bottled with must made from passito grapes they dry themselves for secondary fermentation. No sulfur is used at any point in the vinification. Each bottling is named by the site's elevation (280 Slm = 280 above sea level, etc.).

The Region: Veneto

Veneto is one of the most important wine regions of Italy, located in the northeast corner of the Italian peninsula. It borders with Trentino-Alto Adige (north), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (northeast), Emilia-Romagna (south), and Lombardy (west).

The capital of Veneto is Venice, which is also its most populous city, followed by Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Rovigo. The east coast of Lake Garda, the biggest Italian lake, is part of Veneto and so is the tract of Alpine foothills called Venetian Prealps.

Veneto is the leading Italian region for the quantity of wine produced – even though wine-producing regions such as Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy, Puglia, and Sicily all have bigger territories.

Some of its most famous wines are Amarone della Valpolicella, Valpolicella, Soave, and of course Prosecco. Other less-known but equally delicious wines are Recioto della Valpolicella, Recioto di Gambellara, Raboso del Piave, and Bardolino.

Veneto’s main characteristic is perhaps the great variety of wine types produced, obtained mostly from indigenous grape varietals – Corvina, Glera, and Garganega being the most common.

This is due as much to its specific geography and climate as it is to rather peculiar winemaking techniques such as the grape drying technique employed to make Amarone della Valpolicella, Veneto’s most famous red wine.