Lake Garda & Bardolino.

It was blowing a gale on the afternoon we stopped at Lake Garda; you could have headlined the scene ‘Tourist Hair Runs Amok’. Fortunately, the Disneylandlike cellar door at the nearby Zeni 1870 winery dives underground and out of the weather. There’s fun to be had in the sensory lab at the winery, open to all, but what’s interesting here is the different take on red wine styles. Bardolino reds essentially use the same grapes varieties as Valpolicella (based around rondinella, corvina and molinara) but the techniques used to make it are markedly different and so too the resulting wines. They’re characterised by their lack of character in a way, or perhaps by their easy drinkability.