The poet, dandy, fighter pilot, lothario, propagandist and Italian First World War hero Gabriele d’Annunzio had extravagant, and often bizarre, living standards. He used to check in to hotels with his own bed linen, liked to go horse riding completely starkers and once bought 22 dogs and eight horses all in one go.
As for what he drank, there must have been a lot of Soave going on because he once declared that this white wine from the Veneto was ‘the wine of youth and love, no longer suited for me, burdened with years… but I drink in homage to the past; it will not give me back 20 years but it will revive the memory’.
In one way it’s a surprising association: a man so flamboyant he once sent a carriage filled with roses to collect a famous courtesan (and recruited servants to hurl blooms at her when she descended from it) and a white wine that in late-20th-century Britain became a supermarket staple only because so much of it was very cheap and so neutral as to be inoffensive.
Soave doesn’t remind me of love, although as it is made near Verona, the setting for Romeo and Juliet. Soave reminds me of spring. Its grapes are garganega (which must make up at least 70 per cent of the blend and can have a faint almond flavour), trebbiano di Soave (the local name for verdicchio), chardonnay, pinot bianco and sauvignon blanc.
If you step away from the cheapest and most insipid versions you can find white wines whose shape feels a little like a gentler, slacker version of Chablis – curvy, with a slightly glossy feel and a refreshing tang – and which have a subtle smell of white flowers, blanched almonds and lemon. Look for wines marked Soave Classico, which are made from grapes grown in the hills, the historic area of production, rather than in the flat valleys, and usually have a bit more concentration and flavour.
It can be good with avocado, with peach and mozzarella and rocket salad, or with a spring salad of asparagus, broad beans, mint and peas served with creamy ricotta mixed with a grating of lemon zest. It’s also brilliant with crab linguine, seafood risotto or spaghetti vongole.
The more expensive Soaves can be concentrated and surprisingly creamy, with tinges of pear, almond croissant and camomile, and these match very well with creamy cheeses, seafood, caramelised scallops, firm white fish cooked in butter or even duxelles of mushrooms on toast with a slice of fresh fig (not very springlike, that last match – but it’s good).
The kingpin producer in Soave is Pieropan, a family that has been making wine here since the 19th century and was the first to produce a bottled wine with the name ‘Soave’ on it. Pieropan wines, in slender flute bottles, are often found on starry restaurant lists.
Meanwhile, in an innovation designed to differentiate the better wines and underscore their quality, a couple of years ago the region declared 33 vineyard areas as ‘UGAs’ (additional geographical units). These are best understood as the Italian equivalent of crus. In total they cover almost two-fifths of the vineyard area in Soave and if all of the grapes used to make a wine have been grown in that specified location it can now be named on the label.
Just don’t think of Gabriele d’Annunzio when you open them. He was once described as a ‘frightful gnome with red-rimmed eyes’. Perhaps the wine was necessary not for him but for his lovers, so they could brace themselves for this sight.
