Cà dei Frati – Buy wine online
In our online shop, you can buy Cà dei Frati wine online; naturally, we carry their flagship wine, I Frati, as well as the Brolettino Lugana, which is aged in wood and has excellent aging potential, the wonderful Rosa dei Frati, a rosé wine made from Groppello, Marzemino, Sangiovese, and Barbera, and the Ronchedone, a powerful, velvety red wine that shows that wine from Lake Garda doesn't automatically have to be white.
Cà dei Frati – Winery from Italy
Cà dei Frati is a winery from Italy. Lombardy has been home to the Dal Cero family, who have been running the estate for 80 years now, since 1939. The Cà dei Frati winery is located in Sirmione, in one of the most beautiful spots around Lake Garda, not far from the largest of all Italian lakes. The landmark of Sirmione and the most popular destination for tourists is the Scaligero Castle, a nearly perfectly preserved water castle built in the 14th century, which sits on a peninsula extending about four kilometers into Lake Garda. However, it is not just the exceptionally beautiful landscape that is so popular, but also the fine wine from Lake Garda. Above all, the Lugana, a fresh, fruity white wine made from the native Turbiana grape variety.
The young Felice Dal Cero recognized the great potential lying dormant in this then-underestimated grape variety back in the 1940s. He had just moved to Sirmione from Valpolicella with his wife, Edvige, to purchase an old farmstead with roots dating back to a 16th-century monastery, initially running a mixed agricultural operation with livestock and crop farming. But the farm on Via Frati also included a few rows of vines with a variant of the Trebbiano grape: the Turbiana.
This variety had adapted perfectly to the sub-Mediterranean climate with its hot summers and mild winters. On the heavy clay soils with limestone-rich glacial deposits near the lake, the grape—when its growth is kept in check—produces mineral-rich wines with aromas of citrus fruits and almonds, along with a balanced acid structure. The grape variety produces such outstanding quality here that the area was declared the Lugana DOC in 1967. Son Pietro Dal Cero, who managed the vineyards at his parents' estate, was instrumental in the creation of the DOC.
Just two years later, the Cà dei Frati winery launched its first bottled wine, the I Frati Lugana DOC. Until then, like many other wineries, the estate had only sold its wines as anonymous bulk wine. A "Lugana hype" was nowhere near, but the granting of the DOC status was a major step toward quality wines that would eventually gain national and international recognition.
Today, the winery is run by Pietro's children: Gian Franco ensures healthy grapes in the vineyards, his brother took over the cellar work, and Anna Maria, Pietro's daughter, manages sales. The I Frati Lugana by Cà dei Frati is considered one of the best Luganas, and indeed one of the best white wines in Italy.
