Colli di Conegliano DOCG

An umbrella DOCG for the non-sparkling wines of the Prosecco hills — a deliberate counterpoint to the fizz that dominates the region. It encompasses four distinct wine types made in the steep, forested terrain between Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto.

The Terroir Limestone and clay slopes with significant elevation changes, cooler than the valley floor, and shaped by the Dolomite influence from the north. The same hillsides that produce Prosecco Superiore here yield wines of considerably more texture and concentration.

The Wines

• Bianco: A blend led by Incrocio Manzoni 6.0.13 (a Riesling × Pinot Bianco cross developed at the Conegliano viticultural school). It delivers diesel, white flowers, and mineral grip — closer in spirit to Alsatian Riesling than anything else in Veneto.
• Rosso: A Bordeaux-influenced blend (Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Marzemino). Oak-aged, structured, and built for the table.
• Refrontolo Passito: A rare sweet red from dried Marzemino grapes, produced in the sub-zone of Refrontolo.
• Torchiato di Fregona: A straw-wine (passito) white from Glera, Verdiso, and Boschera — one of the most obscure sweet wines in Italy.

The Critical Take The Manzoni Bianco here is superb and underpriced. This DOCG is where the serious, terroir-focused producers of the Prosecco zone prove that the hills can do more than bubbles.

Torchiato di Fregona The rarest of the four deserves more than a line. Glera, Verdiso and Boschera are hung in lofts through the winter, losing most of their weight, and pressed around Easter — torchiato means pressed — at sugar levels so high that fermentation takes months and often never finishes. A few thousand bottles a year come out of one small commune. It is among the least commercial wines made anywhere in Italy, and it survives because a handful of families treat it as an obligation.

Refrontolo, and Mozart The Refrontolo Passito is dried Marzemino, and Refrontolo makes the loudest of the several claims on the line in Don Giovanni where the Don calls for “eccellente Marzimino”. Trentino makes the same claim with rather better documentary support. What is not in dispute is that dried Marzemino here gives something genuinely unusual: a sweet red, faintly bitter, tasting of black cherry and cocoa, drunk locally with hard cheese rather than pudding.

Under the Same UNESCO Listing These are the hills inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as the Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene — the hogback ridges, the vineyards at gradients that forbid machinery, the mosaic of vine and woodland. The listing was granted for the landscape, and this DOCG covers the wines made on it that are not Prosecco.

At the Table The Bianco handles roast poultry and freshwater fish; the Rosso wants game or spezzatino. Torchiato and Refrontolo belong with aged Montasio or a hard mountain cheese rather than with dessert. Whites at 11–12°C, reds at 16–17°C, the sweet wines at 12–14°C.

Benchmark Producers Lucchetta, Collalto.