Dal Bello

The Asolo hills, farmed by the Dal Bello family since 1906, rise in a green band north-west of Treviso, bordered by the Brenta and the Piave and sheltered from the north by the bulk of Monte Grappa. Here, the family grows its Glera, the grape behind Prosecco, on around fifty hectares of vineyard scattered across the slopes. The cool air that flows down from Grappa during the night is part of what gives the wines here the bright, floral, orchard-fruit lift that is the hallmark of quality Prosecco.

The family has been farming this ground since 1906, passing through four generations. The original family home on the Sant’Anna hill in Asolo still stands, and now houses a small museum of the family’s century in wine, with a walking path laid out through the surrounding vineyards. 

The Asolo Prosecco zone was elevated to DOCG status, the top tier of the Italian system, in 2009; formal recognition of a hillside terroir that had long produced fruit a cut above the surrounding plain. Dal Bello works within it as a grower-producer, both owning the vineyards and making the wine from its own fruit, which is not the usual model for the region. Its vineyards are farmed to enhance and protect biodiversity, and the estate carries the Italian agriculture ministry’s certificate for sustainable practice.

The hills of Asolo are not the high Alps, but they are unmistakably shaped by the mountains behind them, and Dal Bello’s wines carry that cool, elevated freshness down from the slopes and into the glass.