This past summer I had the good fortune to finally visit Giovanni Prandini at her winery, Perla del Garda, in Lonato del Garda in the Lugana region of Lake Garda. I have known Giovanna for many years and I consider her a friend. That said, I had never been able to visit her winery and try the breadth of wines she has on offer. We met many years ago through my work as a Brand Ambassador the Lugana Consortium. Through the years we have met many times but this summer was the first opportunity to see where the magic actually happens. Giovanna is a serious entrepreneur and is always at the helm not just of her winery but of local groups and organizations that promote her region, not just herself and her winery. It’a quality I admire and respect. I also love how her clothing matched the color of her winery’s walls.

My son and I had spent a few days on Lake Garda in Sirmione and I called Giovanna to see if she was around. She promptly made a date to pick us up and we had a fabulous time in the winery and at lunch with Giovanna and her son, aided in the wine service by a great sommelier from the Associazione Italiana Sommelier, Brescia delegation. I am part of the Milan delegation so I am always happy to see colleagues working.

Giovanna has a very large property where her family makes wine, olive oil, and has a large dairy production. In fact I got to spend time tasting with Giovanna because her son took mine to see the cows. In addition to everything being incredibly manicured, the winery was spotless in terms of cleanliness and very large. It is constructed on three levels because they use gravity flow in their winemaking. Everything is picked by hand from the vineyards which surround the winery so they have no problem bringing the grapes in immediately. They have about 34 hectares. Lonato is between the towns of Desenzano and Sirmione. The winery was started in 2000. Since 2022, all of the grapes are grown organically, even the parcels in the Valtenesi area that they use to make Chiaretto.

The grapes arrive at the top level of the winery and eventually flow into the stainless steel tanks pictured above. I visited on August 22, right before harvest began. The winery was being prepared to receive grapes. It was extremely hot the day we arrived but inside everything was perfectly temperature controlled.

Giovanna makes a host of sparkling, some from Lugana but some also from Chardonnay. I tasted these four bottles and loved each one of them for different reasons. Perla del Garda is instantly recognizable also because of the very particular bottle shape of the wines. One of the wines we tasted that I have never had before was a Lugana Brut Nature. Very little Lugana is produced in the sparkling version and even less in Brut Nature meaning zero dosage of sugar. The wine was perfect and even more so on that very hot day. Bone dry with great white flowers and fruits with that subtle almond finish, it had racy acidity, great minerality, and a long length. It ages on its lees for 10 months before it is released. I love Lugana as a sparkling wine and it was a lovely part of our tasting. Giovanna also makes a Lugana Millesimato in a sparkling version. This one spent 60 months on its lees and was incredibly elegant, also a Brut Nature. It was fun to see the evolution between two similar wines but with more than 4 more years on the lees. Lugana is absolutely a wine that can age and it was great to see this in a sparkling wine as well. While Giovanna’s winery is super modern, they also pay attention to tradition and do hand riddling on some of their bottles such as the Millesimato.

We tried a Millesimato Extra Brut Garda DOP which was instead made from 100% Chardonnay. It was lovely as well and you could see the same elegance in this wine as in the Lugana wines which are of course made from Turbiana not Chardonnay. The soils here lend themselves both to Chardonnay and to Turbiana with lots of calcareous materials as well as clay and organic matter from the moranic hills that were left when the glaciers withdraw millions of years ago.

Giovanna has won a number of awards for her wines and one place I always see her is at the Tre Bicchieri tasting in New York, usually held in March.

Some of the other wines in her line-up include Ora, a Lugana DOP which we tried as well, a fresh version of Lugana, ready to drink earlier than some of the others. We also tried Perla which is a classic signature wine that I have had many times through the years and is always a favorite with a first course or even a main dish. The stylish bottle also always gets the conversation started about Lugana. We finished the Lugana part of the tasting with Madre Perla which is her Riserva DOP, a Lugana that rests for 12 months on its lees. She uses whole cluster pressing for this wine which has a lot of finesse, complexity, and verve. I like this wine with a weightier dish such as salmon. Giovanna also makes a Lugana Vendemmia Tardiva, again a rarity, only about 3-4 producers make one.

Giovanna also makes a host of red wines but it was very hot the day I visited and it was before lunch and I had a hungry child eating all the bread with Giovanna’s amazing olive oil, a sign her was famished. I did have time to try her Chiaretto from Valtenesi which was delightful. I love Chiaretto from this part of Lake Garda. Chiaretto is made from a blend of grapes that include Groppello, Marzemino, Sangiovese, and Barbera. Raspberry, strawberry flavors and aromas, with lovely acidity and minerality, this was a perfect wine for such a hot day. Giovanna and her son were so lovely and welcoming, I look forward to going back to try all of her reds at a cooler time of the year and to seeing her again in 2024. Such amazing hospitality during my summer vacation was a real treat and totally unexpected.