Nevio Scala’s nine wines, at the foot of Monte Lozzo
Nevio Scala’s estate at Lozzo Atestino: nine labels, and how they work spelled out in full
I wrote this in Italian on temporiti.xyz. AI translated it into English, I reviewed it.
The Azienda Agricola Nevio Scala (the family farm and winery) is at via Saline 53 in Lozzo Atestino, at the foot of Monte Lozzo — the same hill as Sentiero n. 5 (trail no. 5 of the Parco). Five hectares of vineyard, nine labels, organic certification, and above the door the name of someone who, before making wine, won four European trophies in four years coaching Parma.
Anyone who followed football from the 1980s knows who that is. As a player, Nevio Scala wore the shirts of Vicenza, Fiorentina, Roma, Inter, Milan. Then he moved to the bench. The years people remember are the ones at Parma: a club freshly promoted to Serie A that under his management collected four trophies in four seasons (Coppa Italia in 1992, Cup Winners’ Cup in 1993, UEFA Super Cup the same year, UEFA Cup in 1995), against clubs with budgets ten times bigger. After Parma: Borussia Dortmund, Besiktas, Shakhtar Donetsk, Spartak Moscow. Nearly forty years in football, all across Europe. Throughout that whole time, when he came back, he would climb on a tractor and help his brother Giorgio, because the family farm had never stopped.
The land was there before Nevio was born. In 1929 his grandfather Angelo left Minerbe, in the Veronese, and settled in Lozzo Atestino with his wife Giuseppina and their children, among them Francesco, Nevio’s future father. They were fittavoli (tenant farmers) at the boaria Oselanda (a large estate farm), owned by the Albrizzi nobility, growing what Scala calls “tobacco and polenta” — tobacco and corn. They bought the fields back one plot at a time. Nevio grew up there, left for football, came back. In 1997 he planted an olive grove on Monte Lozzo. Today the farm is run by his children: Claudio, who left a university professorship in education, and Elisa, who also left a steady job and now works as pruner, agronomist and administrator.
The five hectares of vineyard, according to the VinNatur profile, sit on volcanic-alluvial soil, shaped over time by the courses of the Brenta and Adige rivers. But the vineyard is only part of what they grow: olive trees, wheat for bread, barley for beer malt, legumes to put nitrogen back in the soil, sunflower and rapeseed for cooking oil, sugar beet. And, more recently, hemp — a crop that was once important here and then vanished from local agriculture.
The nine labels
All are IGT Veneto (Indicazione Geografica Tipica, Italy’s regional designation tier) and all ferment spontaneously, without selected yeasts. The winery pairs each label with an adjective. I’m keeping them, because they fit.
GARGÀNTE, the most joyful: sparkling white from 100% Garganega, refermented in bottle with a portion of passito must (must from partially dried grapes), no added sulfites, 11.5% vol. This is the first harvest of the Garganega, picked early: the acidity is what holds everything together.
DILÈTTO AL CUBO, the most surprising: Garganega in purity, second harvest, 11% vol. The name is literal — it comes from blending three separate vinifications of the same variety: one in steel, one in concrete, one in wood. Three parallel paths from the same grape, brought back together in the glass.
CÓNTAME, the most talkative: third-harvest Garganega, macerated on the skins, 11.5% vol. This is the winery’s orange wine. The pairings they suggest (white meats, spiced cuisines, blue cheeses and soft-rind) are honest: drunk alone before dinner, it’s demanding.
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MONEMVASÌA, the most remote: 100% Malvasia Istriana macerated on the skins, 12% vol. The name is that of the Greek port from which Venetian merchants had been importing the grape variety since the 1400s.
SOLLÙCHERO, the most fragrant: Moscato in a dry, macerated version — 65% giallo and 35% bianco, 12% vol. Three days of skin contact before fermentation, then nine months in concrete with bâtonnage. Anyone arriving at a Moscato expecting sweetness will find something quite different.
REGINA, the most noble: same Moscato blend but sparkling, ancestral method, fermentation finishing in bottle, 12% vol. Named after his grandmother.
DESUETO, the most ancient: rosato (rosé) from old red-variety grapes recovered from Colli Euganei (the Euganean Hills) vineyards — varieties common here until the early 1900s that were then abandoned because they yielded little and no longer found buyers. 12% vol.
VALBONA, the most austere: 100% Cabernet Franc, 15% vol, produced only in vintages that allow it. The flagship label, and the price reflects it.
…INFUNDO, the most gentle: passito from Garganega alone, dried in a fruttaio (a traditional loft for air-drying grapes) until the first waxing moon after the spring equinox, 12.5% vol, in half-bottle.
Three are the ones I liked most, and I’ll describe them without a sommelier’s vocabulary, because I don’t have one. Gargànte is the most immediate: dense mousse, yeast and ripe fruit on the nose, and underneath that acidity that cleans the palate. The one I’d open without thinking. Cóntame is the opposite: the color tilts toward amber, the nose goes to yellow fruit and herbs, and on the palate it’s broad, with a roughness you don’t expect from a white. Not an aperitif wine — it needs a plate of food in front of it. Monemvasìa sits between the two: lemon peel, peach, a softer base, but the sip stays taut.
How they work
The winery holds organic certification from ICEA and is a member of VinNatur, which bans its members from using synthetic chemical products. Their website says they consider organic certification a starting point, not a destination. That could be a stock phrase — but then you look at what they grow in the fields around the vineyard (everything I listed above) and the sentence holds up.
In an interview from a few years ago, Nevio Scala said that since they stopped using chemicals in the vineyard, the earthworms came back. It’s the most concrete observation I found about their method. A certificate tells you what you don’t use; the earthworms tell you what the soil is like.
Getting there
Since autumn 2022 the cantina (winery) has also been an agriturismo (a working farm with guest facilities) and has opened an osteria (a simple tavern) in the restored old stall, serving merende (afternoon snacks), taglieri (charcuterie boards), cicchetti and spunciotti (Venetian bar bites). Hours: Saturday 17:00–20:30 and Sunday 11:00–17:00, reservations strongly recommended. Vineyard and cellar visits are by appointment only. Everything on the winery’s page; wine can be bought there or from the online shop.
Cover illustration generated with AI (SDXL with ControlNet, run locally). The facial features are traced from a photograph by Anastasiya Fedorenko, 2002, CC BY-SA 3.0. The shapes of the four trophies are traced from Wikimedia Commons images: Coppa Italia by RichiWarrior05 and Cup Winners’ Cup by MacMoreno, both CC BY-SA 4.0; UEFA Super Cup by Daniel from Glasgow, CC BY 2.0; UEFA Cup, public domain. The resulting illustration is released under CC BY-SA.
