Learn about Valdobbiadene

Valdobbiadene lies at about 250 metres where the Prealps drop to the Piave. The town is on the valley floor; everything that matters is on the slopes immediately above it, where south-facing morainic ridges catch the sun and drain fast.

A modest valley settlement through the Venetian centuries, Valdobbiadene's modern identity dates from the nineteenth century, when its hillside growers began bottling separately. DOC came in 1969, DOCG in 2009, and UNESCO inscription of the hills in 2019.

The culture here is almost entirely wine, and unusually granular about it: growers talk in terms of individual slopes the way Burgundy talks about climats. The rive system and Cartizze give a sparkling wine an argument about place that it is rarely allowed elsewhere.

Nothing built in the town matters as much as what is built into the hillsides. The ciglioni -- grassed earth terraces cut by hand into slopes too steep for machinery, held by their own turf rather than stone -- are the structures UNESCO listed.

The hills have a temperate climate with warm summers and cold winters, sheltered from the north by the Prealps and open to the south. Wide day-to-night temperature swings on the slopes are what give the wine its acidity and aroma.