Terre Lariane IGT

The hills around Lake Como, in the provinces of Lecco and Como. Terre Lariane is a geographical indication rather than a denomination, and it exists because a handful of people decided that a vineyard which had almost entirely disappeared was worth rebuilding.

The Terroir The registered file names three factors and no more: the presence of the lake, the altitude of the hilly band of the Brianza — Montevecchia — and the terracing. It adds that the hilly orography and the prevalent exposure give an adequately ventilated, luminous environment, and that in choosing sites, land with good exposure suited to quality viticulture is privileged. Como is deep and long, and like Garda it moderates a latitude that would otherwise be marginal; Montevecchia is the ridge of the Brianza, a regional park of terraced hillside twenty minutes from Milan.

What Was Lost Lake Como carried substantial vineyard into the nineteenth century — the terraces are still legible on the slopes above Bellagio and Varenna — and lost almost all of it to phylloxera, to silk, and then to the simple fact that a lakeside terrace is worth more with a house on it. What survives is a few dozen hectares in the Brianza hills and a scatter of plots above the lake, replanted since the 1990s.

Grape Varieties A broad and frankly experimental list: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo, Barbera, Bonarda, Freisa and Vespolina among the reds; Chardonnay, Riesling, Garganega and the local Verdese among the whites. Verdese is a Brianza native, nearly extinct, and the one variety here that belongs to nowhere else.

The Critical Take This is not a wine region so much as a piece of landscape maintenance that produces wine, and it should be judged accordingly. The whites are light, sharp and clean; the reds are better than expected, because glacial gravel on a south-facing terrace above a large lake is genuinely decent ground. Quantities are trivial and prices reflect the cost of farming a terrace within commuting distance of Milan. Drink it there.

Manzoni Country This is the setting of I Promessi Sposi, the novel that did more than any other single book to establish modern literary Italian — it opens on quel ramo del lago di Como, that branch of the lake, looking at precisely these hills. The vineyards are on the slopes above the villages Manzoni was describing.

At the Table Lariano cooking: missoltini, lake perch with risotto, polenta uncia, pizzoccheri, and Taleggio. Whites at 9–11°C, reds at 15–16°C.

Benchmark Producers La Costa at Perego and Il Cipresso.