Ca' Lojera Lugana

"Casa dei lupi": this is the meaning in the local dialect of "Ca' Lojera". And yet, at the court of the Tiraboschi husband and and wife team, there is only the risk of getting ripped apart by... excellent wines! The name of the winery, which derives from the legendary presence of wolves in this area, is actually a water-tight guarantee for the Lugana denomination. With their simple style and gracious and kind welcome, Ambra and Franco transformed their fruit and vegetable company into a strictly family-run Lugana experience in the 1990s, surrounding the body of their baby in 18-hectares entirely planted with Turbiana vines.

In this area, once rich in irrigation ditches and fountains that were believed to be populated by wolves, the lands are today predominantly clayey and very moderately hilly, with a beautiful view of Lake Garda. Here some strains, which existed before the winery revolution, have survived for over fifty years.

The philosophy of the Tiraboschis, Independent Winemakers, is clear: their Luganas represent the territory in a straight-forward manner, and therefore everything is based on verticality, freshness and minerality, without pandering concessions to the structure or to excessively pretentious refinements. Except for Lugana Superiore, which stays for two years in wood (but they are large barrels that do not denature the terroir), and even the Riserva del Lupo, made from partially botrytised grapes, stored only in steel.

The Lugana vintage is a masterpiece of the essence of this typology. Straw-coloured with clear greenish tinges, although they become gilded with age, the bouquet is almost hypnotic with its mineral and floral carat, with its very delicate, almost allusive, notes of jasmine, elderflower, yellow plum, even mint and marjoram. Only apparently evanescent, on the palate it shows the strong personality of the cerebral wine, delicate in structure but powerful in the fresh, sapid and almond-like backbone.