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 If You Knew Soave Like I Know Soave
Oh, oh, oh what a wine

            The philosophy that helps me through scary new undertakings like tightrope walking, or trying to speak Arabic, is this: the worse things get, the more fun they’ll be to write about. 

            My latest brush with humiliation happened in Soave, Italy, where I was sent to speak about wine to people who pretty much invented the stuff, an awe-inspiring group of Italian producers and press.

            Italians love ceremony. They will sit patiently through twenty-five speakers who all start by thanking everyone present, plus God and the king and Rasputin and anyone else they can think of and then launch into a variation of “Our wines are made in the vineyard,” which they repeat five times. My speech was wedged in the middle of these, and I knew just what to do. As an American, sorely lacking in diplomacy, my plan was to wake them up, shock them and get them laughing.

            When my first three punch lines are greeted with silence, I wonder if the problem is my Italian. I love public speaking, but in my quest to be multilingual, my grasp on any particular language is far from perfect. I know enough not to speed up at such moments, although short of being sucked into a gravitational black hole, it FEELS like the thing to do. The sun is hot. The audience is cold. Just as my speech rounds the turn to its clever climax I’m drowned out by church bells which toll not five or twelve times, but about forty-seven. When they stop I cut directly to the last line, sat down, and think hard about slinking away, hitchhiking to the airport and leaving the country permanently.

            As it turned out, I didn't do quite as badly as I thought. They learned a lot and loved the irreverence – they’re just trained not to laugh during formal occasions. Or so they told me. Maybe they were just being nice, which happens a lot when you’re the press and they need some.

            Either way, it goes to show that things aren’t always what you thought. Take Soave. That cheap, ubiquitous white you used to drink out of tumblers at red-checked Eyetalian restaurants. That was then. Like so many wine regions, Soave has gotten with the program, lowering yields and going for quality, not quantity to the point where it currently holds the number one spot in my personal wine hit parade.

            The word Soave originated with the Suevians, an ancient Germanic people led into the region by someone called Alboin the Longobord King, who probably surfed in from Hawaii.

            The two main indigenous grapes in Soave have evolved, over centuries, into a perfect marriage with the region. Garganega (rhymes vaguely with Veronica), gently perfumed, supple and rich, is balanced with the livelier zing of Trebbiano di Soave.

            The result is like no white you know. Picture the lush body of Chardonnay, a gentle touch of Riesling/Muscat flowery perfume, all laced with the zip of Sauvignon Blanc. But there’s more. What's really interesting is that Soave manages to develop the deep, burnished gold and nutty complexity of bottle-age in a startlingly short time. At three years it sometimes resembles a 10-year-old white Burgundy.

            And with some real age, it gets even more exciting, growing deeper and more complex, while retaining its flowery freshness.

            The combination of delicacy and structure makes Soave extremely food-friendly. So does the fact that it can pack more flavor at 12% alcohol than many wines do with 15% or 16%. 

            The quality leap is a result of laws and initiatives that are meant to guarantee quality but often don’t. The consortium, bless its heart (an expletive in the deep South), has gone all Germanic and instituted a Quality Pyramid, which they claim simplifies the classifications for consumers. Trust me on this one: it doesn’t.

            Without getting too technical, here are the levels: the simplest wine, labeled Colli Scaligeri or simply Soave, is an amazing value; fresh, delicate, floral and fruity. Soave Classico, from the better hillside vineyards, is more complex and age-worthy, and develops creamy undertones when aged or vinified in oak. Soave Classico Superiore is all that plus smaller parcels with lower yields. Riserva means the wine has been aged a minimum of two years.

            But, don’t worry if you forget all that, just try anything from the producers recommended below. You'll find it just the thing to wash the taste of pain and humiliation out of your mouth.  

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