Soave’s Golden Moment, Plus Austria’s Blaufrankisch Master

“Wow, this is an exceptional white.” That was the sentiment James and Senior Editor Aldo Fiordelli shared when they tasted the Pieropan Soave Classico La Rocca 2023. And they had to admit – although this Veneto estate is hardly new to producing outstanding wines, the 2023 stunned them at first sip.

The Pieropan winery – family-owned and run by brothers Andrea and Dario, with the steady support of their mother, Teresita – has long been known for quality. But with the 2023 vintage and La Rocca (the No. 6 pick in our Top 100 World Wines 2025 report), they seem to have captured a golden moment for Soave and demonstrated how the region has become, arguably, Italy’s best source of world-class white wines.

The small, medieval village of La Rocca is easy to spot – it sits on the slopes of Monte Rocchetta just below the village walls, rooted in predominantly marine limestone. The distinction is clear here between the simpler, more straightforward Soave wines from the plains and the deeper, fuller, spicier wines from the hills.

Yet the hilly terrain is anything but uniform. It’s an intricate mosaic of limestone and volcanic soils, intertwined in ways that shift abruptly underfoot. Climb from the village toward another hill known as Monte Carbonare and you’ll find limestone outcrops along the switchbacks – only to arrive at dark volcanic rock once you reach the ridge.

Few explain this special terroir better than the Tessari sisters – Meri, Valentina and Alessandra – of the Suavia winery. Their family began with a small, low-lying parcel on Monte Carbonare’s north-facing slope. “It was a harsh, cool area where the grapes struggled to ripen and would even rot,” said Alessandra Tessari, who oversees the vineyards. “But today it has become one of the denomination’s most coveted crus.” They also recently acquired the upper portion above 400 meters.

The Soave from the slope facing the village is tauter and more elegant. The Fitta and Castel Cerino vineyards, facing west, show limestone outcroppings, while the eastern side sits on basalt, yielding more vibrant, smoky wines. Garganega thrives in these hills: it’s a generous, late-ripening variety, harvested at the end of September and yielding around 10 metric tons per hectare.

Trebbiano di Soave adds another layer of tension, though in the recent cooler vintages it has perhaps become less essential than it once was (like in 2022). Now come the newest releases – the 2024s and 2023s.

Producers and the president of the Soave Wine Consortium, Cristian Ridolfi, are upfront about the challenges. “These were not easy vintages – especially 2023, with a very rainy spring and demanding vineyard work.” Unsurprisingly, the 2024s taste fuller and rounder than the previous year’s wines, much like the warm and approachable 2022s.

Then there is the question of aging. In the past, small oak played a larger role, and wines like La Rocca were less accessible in their youth. Today, La Rocca – and Inama's Soave Classico Foscarino I Palchi Grande Cuvée 2022, which is also fermented and aged in large casks – shows how a measured touch of wood can lend garganega an added degree of refinement and nobility.

La Rocca, in fact, is a kind of Italian Condrieu: classy and sophisticated, with toasty and stony aromas layered with lemon peel, orange, quince and fern. Complex, weighted, vibrant, long and silky – it’s a truly outstanding wine. The I Palchi, from a warmer vintage, is intensely mineral, showing apricots, lemon peel, angelica and mango. Full-bodied and richly flavored – with mango returning on the palate alongside citrus – it blends vibrancy with a smooth, polished finish. Like La Rocca, it is fermented and aged in large oak barrels.

Suavia’s Soave Classico Monte Carbonare 2023 captures the terrain perfectly, offering a complex interplay of ripe and fresh character. The nose layers apricots, lime peel, melon and smoky minerality, while the palate is citrus-driven, medium-bodied and vibrant, with tingling acidity and a tense, savory finish.

Gianni Tessari’s Soave Classico Scalete 2024 stands out for its nervy precision, with sour citrus, smoky sulfur tones, yellow grapefruit, lemon leaf and ripe white peach. Medium-bodied and remarkably textural, it radiates silky finesse and magnetic tension – a wine that begs for another sip.

From Le Battistelle, the Soave Classico Montesei 2024 shows a layered, leesy, lightly reductive profile, rich in smoky aromas mingling with candied lemon and fresh apricot. It’s pure garganega in spirit. Medium-bodied, bright and vibrant, it marries tension with weight and texture, finishing long and confidently.

Austria's Blaufrankisch Master

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott traveled to the Eisenberg subregion of Burgenland, Austria, right on the nation’s border with Hungary. It is home to the Schiefer winery, where the former sommelier Uwe Schiefer singlehandedly created the modern style of reds from the blaufrankisch grape beginning with the 1997 vintage.

“Modern” means not matured in new oak casks, rather in neutral oak casks of 500 to 3,000 liters, so that the oak character doesn’t obscure the complex spicy, licorice, floral and forest berry aromas of the blaufrankisch grape. It also means gentle extraction that avoids pushing the pronounced tannins of the grape too far, seeking silkiness rather than firmness.

For a number of years, Schiefer faced horrendous challenges. The 2014, 2015 and 2016 vintages were excellent in quality (see our tasting notes below), but quantities were way down due to frost and hail. He was forced to work with an investor, but this turned into another quagmire of problems.

Then, on June 8 of this year, the building where Schiefer’s workers stay and which holds vineyard equipment was hit by a major flood. “This pushed me to make a bold decision,” Schiefer said – and now he has a new business partner, his son Paul is the main owner of the winery, and his reds of the 2021 vintage are his best ever.

It might seem odd that 2021 is about to become the current vintage, but for his reds, beginning with the excellent entry-level red Schiefer Blaufränkisch Burgenland 2021, the norm is a full three years of maturation in barrel. This wine has a pronounced wet earth character alongside all the spice. It is also much more velvety than most comparable blaufrankisch reds.

The most exciting of the wines is the soon-to-be-released Schiefer Blaufränkich Ried Szapary Eisenberg an der Pinka 2021, which has incredible focus and enormous slaty minerality. You’ll have to wait longer for the Schiefer Blaufränkisch Burgenland Reihburg R2 2021, but this wine from vines planted in 1936 is even more concentrated. Schiefer is back big time!

Portugal's Evolution

Senior Editor Jacobo García Andrade got a compelling glimpse of the diversity and evolving styles of Portuguese wines during a recent trip to the country alongside tastings he did in our Hong Kong office.

Among the highlights were a series of bottles from Luis Pato, one of Bairrada’s most influential voices and a winemaker widely credited with helping define the region’s modern identity. His wines, long regarded for their ability to age, stood out for their precision and regional typicity. 

A standout was the Luis Pato Vinho Regional Beiras Vinha Barrosa 2008, a wine that demonstrates how beautifully these reds perform over time. The aromatics evolve toward earthy nuances with a marked rusty note, showing an aromatic profile that resembles aged Left Bank Bordeaux or cabernet franc from Chinon. Sourced from a single, nearly 100-year-old vineyard planted on the region’s characteristic clay-limestone soils, it is completely destemmed and aged for two winters in neutral oak.

It is currently expressive, showing evolution with precision, and still has life ahead of it. The baga grape has naturally high phenolic content, which produces marked tannins that often require time to soften. Combined with its firm acidity, this structure is central to the grape’s aging potential. 

Its younger counterpart, the Luis Pato Bairrada Quinta do Ribeirinho 2022, offers a different perspective. From an ungrafted 1988 vineyard, it presents a quieter, more ethereal expression, accessible with a bit of aeration but clearly built to age. It goes to show how Bairrada’s baga can shift in tone from muscular to almost transparent depending on vintage and site. 

Beyond Bairrada, one of the most intriguing discoveries came from Alentejo – the Fitapreta Alentejano Fina Flor NV. Made from pure arinto and aged under flor in a solera system, the wine reflects a growing interest in oxidative and biologically influenced profiles within Portugal. Harvested at higher alcohol – a key factor for flor development – it delivers concentration and glyceric richness balanced by the bitterness and linear tension that define arinto. The result is a wine of striking contrast and precision. 

– Aldo Fiordelli, Stuart Pigott and Jacobo García Andrade contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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