Zenato Lugana San Benedetto DOC 2025, Veneto

Zenato Lugana San Benedetto DOC is the wine that started it all for the Zenato family, grown on their home estate at San Benedetto, between Peschiera and Desenzano on the southern shore of Lake Garda. It is made entirely from Trebbiano di Lugana, the local grape also known as Turbiana, from vines averaging around 30 years old on calcareous clay soils. The grapes are hand-picked, gently pressed and fermented in stainless steel at cool temperatures, then the wine rests in steel for several months and in bottle before release, with no oak, to keep its purity.

The wine is pale straw with greenish glints. The nose is fresh and delicate, with white peach, pear and almond, plus floral hints. On the palate it is fresh but surprisingly full, soft and well-structured, with flavours ranging from apple and pear to pineapple, a mineral streak and a long, bright finish.

Lugana San Benedetto makes a superb aperitif and loves fish: try it with grilled sea bass, prawns, crab salad, seafood pasta or a simple goat’s cheese salad. Serve well chilled at 9 to 10°C. It is delicious young and will hold its freshness for three to four years.

Zenato’s story begins in 1960 at San Benedetto di Lugana, on the southern shore of Lake Garda, where Sergio Zenato and his wife Carla Prospero set out to show what this corner of the Veneto could do. Today their children, Nadia and Alberto, run the family estate from Peschiera del Garda, farming nearly a hundred hectares of vineyards across Lugana, Valpolicella and Bolgheri. The range is built on two pillars: crisp, characterful Lugana whites from the lakeside clay soils, and rich, generous Valpolicella reds from the chalky hillsides above Verona, crowned by Ripassa and Amarone. Sustainability matters here too, with the family following the Equalitas programme since 2021 and keeping bees on the Costalunga estate in Valpolicella.