Strada dei Vini del Garda
The Lake Garda southern shore route, from Sirmione's Lugana flats to the Valtenesi headland and its Chiaretto cellars.
Drive this route →Lombardy · DOC
Valtenesi DOC Garda's Groppello Shore, from Chiaretto to Riserva
Valtènesi Chiaretto is the rosé with a legal release date. It may not be sold before the 14th of February after its harvest. That Valentine is written into the rulebook. Groppello leads both the pale chiaretto and the spiced rosso. The zone runs along Garda's western shore, fifteen towns of olive and vine between Salò and Desenzano.
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Decode the label
What the label tells you
One word on the front changes the ageing, the strength and the price.
On the label
Chiaretto
The Valentine's release
12% minimum alcohol
14 Feb earliest sale, by law
Drink the newest vintage you can find, cold.
In stock from £20.40 See the 1 bottle ↓On the label
Rosso
Groppello in red
12% minimum; from 1 September
30%+ Groppello biotypes
The spiced, supple red of the shore; riserva adds two years.
In stock from £23.40 See the 1 bottle ↓On the label
Riserva
Two years' patience
2 years minimum ageing
Richer and more intensely spiced; the sottozona's cellar tier.
No bottles in stock right now
The boundary
Where it is
Everything on this page, the estates, the bottles, the sub-zones, sits inside this line.
The zone is the morainic amphitheatre on Garda's south-western shore: fifteen whole communes from Gardone Riviera and Salò down through Moniga, Manerba and Padenghe, plus lakeward slices of Lonato and Desenzano. Olives share every slope, the lake tempers every season, and the vineyards look across the water at the Lugana flats they refuse to resemble.
Inside the zone
15
whole communes, plus parts of Lonato and Desenzano
30%
minimum Groppello in every blend
11 t/ha
maximum yield
14 Feb
chiaretto's earliest legal sale date
Towns worth knowing
Moniga del Garda
Manerba del Garda
Puegnago del Garda
Salò
Padenghe sul Garda
Moniga is the chiaretto's historic home; Costaripa's cellar sits on its edge.
In the glass
What it tastes like, by style
One profile at a time, never blended into a single set of bars.
White peach
Lemon
Redcurrant
Cherry
White pepper
Violet
The disciplinare
The rules that define it
The same table on every denomination page, straight from the production rules.
Grape & its role
Share of the blend
050100%
Solid means the rules demand it. Striped means optional, up to that amount. The words on the right say the same rule.
Valentine's Day is the release date chiaretto sells from the 14th of February after harvest, bottled no earlier than the 1st.
Groppello is non-negotiable at least 30 percent, in the grape's three local biotypes.
Bordeaux on a short leash Cabernet, Carmenere and Merlot together may never pass 10 percent.
Two names, one wine since 2017 the Valtènesi is the sottozona of Riviera del Garda Classico, and labels carry both.
Ageing and alcohol minimums per tier are in the label guide above.
Editor's cellar
Bottles to try, and what Valtenesi costs in the UK
Every live Valtenesi listing, cheapest to dearest
2 wines · 1 retailers
Live prices, compared across 1 UK retailers.
Cellar doors · in Lombardy
Estates you can visit
8 working estates with their gates open.
Only show
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Experiences in the Valtenesi zone
Cellar experiences here average around €40. These are the strongest fits for this page.
Tasting & tour
The Way We Lake It: Winery Tour & Tasting at Cà Maiol in Lake Garda
Cà Maiol
Vineyard and cellar Tour, followed by a tasting of 3 of the most representative wines of Cà Maiol: Prestige, Roseri, and Negresco.
1 h 30 From €25 pp
Book via
Winedering
Tasting & tour
Cà Maiol Lugana Excellence: Winery Tour & Tasting
Cà Maiol
Explore the versatility of Lugana with tour and tasting that focuses solely on our four Lugana Wines
1 h 40 From €40 pp
Book via
Winedering
Tasting & tour
POSTCARD FROM LAKE GARDA - Wine Tour and Tasting at Cà MAIOL
Cà Maiol
Enjoy the unique experience of our vineyard and cellar tour, followed buy a tasting of 6 wines, enriched by local typical products
2 h From €55 pp
Book via
Winedering
Vintage provenance
Why there is no vintage chart
No vintage chart is published for the Valtènesi: the chiaretto is made for the year after its harvest, and the rosso tracks its producer more than the season.
What to check instead
The producer: quality here is tracked estate by estate rather than year by year.
How Valtenesi is made
Groppello must make up at least 30 percent of the blend. It comes in its Gentile, Mocasina and Santo Stefano forms. Marzemino, Barbera and Sangiovese may each join at up to 25 percent. Other Lombard reds fill the balance, with Bordeaux varieties capped at a combined 10. Yields stop at 11 tonnes per hectare, and both wines must reach 12 percent. The chiaretto is a one-night wine. The juice sits only briefly on the skins, then it is pressed pale. It is bottled no earlier than the 1st of February and released from the 14th, four months after picking. The rosso waits until September. Two further years in the cellar earn the riserva. Since 2017 the zone has lived inside the Riviera del Garda Classico DOC as its sottozona, so labels carry both names.
In depth
The Valtènesi is Garda's Provence. It is a rumpled amphitheatre of morainic hills on the lake's Brescia shore. Olive oil, lemons and pale rosé have always mattered more here than dark wine. Groppello is the zone's own grape, grown almost nowhere else. It is named for the tight cluster, the groppo, that it forms. It makes reds of white-pepper spice and rosés of remarkable delicacy.
The chiaretto tradition is dated locally to 1896, at the Venetian senator Pompeo Molmenti's cellar in Moniga. The modern growers' consortium turned that history into the sharpest launch in Italian rosé. It fixed release on Saint Valentine's Day. Each new vintage arrives as the year's first pink wine.
The rules caught up in stages. A Valtènesi DOC came in 2011. Then in 2017 it was absorbed into Riviera del Garda Classico as its prestige zone, which is why bottles wear the double name.
Costaripa at Moniga sets the quality bar with RosaMara and its single-vineyard chiaretti. Mattia Vezzola returned there from Bellavista to the family cellar. Pasini San Giovanni farms organically at Raffa, a few minutes inland. Both pour on the Garda wine route. Drink the chiaretto inside two years, with lake fish or within sight of the water.
On the table
What to eat with Valtenesi
The home country leads; global pairings that genuinely work follow.
In-depth guide
Valtenesi, answered
Because the rulebook says so. The chiaretto may be bottled from the 1st of February and sold from the 14th, four months after harvest. The date markets the style honestly, since this is a rosé built to drink young and pale.
It is the Valtènesi's own red, named for its tight groppo cluster and grown almost nowhere else. It gives white-pepper spice, red cherry and gentle tannin. It must be at least 30 percent of every Valtènesi blend.
Valtènesi is its prestige sottozona. Since 2017 the two names share one rulebook, and labels usually carry both. The Valtènesi mention means the tighter zone and the stricter blend.
Method and grape. Chiaretto is pressed after only a brief time on the skins, a night or less. The fruit is Groppello-led, which gives a paler, saltier wine than most Italian rosato. Think of it as Garda's answer to Provence, with more spice.
Explore more Lombardy
Same region only: the denominations Valtenesi drinkers reach for next.
