Conegliano Geography & Climate

Conegliano lies at about 70 metres on the northern edge of the Veneto plain, roughly 30 km north of Treviso, where the ground begins climbing toward the Prealps. The historic centre is built up the side of a single hill, with the castle on top -- which is why the town reads as compact and vertical rather than sprawling.

The hills that matter run west from here to Valdobbiadene, a band of steep morainic ridges about 40 km long formed by ancient glacial deposits. Their slopes are too steep to work with machinery, which is why they are terraced, and their south-facing aspect and poor stony soils are what the Glera grape needs.

The Piave runs a few kilometres east, a river that matters here for history as much as hydrology -- it was the front line for the last year of the First World War.

North the ground rises quickly into the Prealps and the Cansiglio forest plateau; south it flattens completely toward Treviso and the lagoon.

Summers (June-August) are warm and humid, usually in the high twenties to low thirties, with afternoon thunderstorms rolling off the mountains. The hills are consistently cooler than the plain, and the temperature swing between day and night on the slopes is part of what gives the wine its acidity.

Winters (December-February) are cold and often foggy, with the Po valley fog reaching this far north but breaking up against the hills -- it is common for the terraces to be in sun while the plain below is under cloud.

Rainfall is high for the region and well distributed, heavier here than out on the open plain because the Prealps lift the air arriving from the south.

Hail is the growers' real fear. A single storm in the weeks before harvest can take a slope's entire crop, and the netting over some vineyards is there for that.