Since 2013 Ca’ Rugate has been part of the Independent Winegrowers of Soave, an association belonging to the F.I.V.I. (Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers), motivated by the urge to protect the typical character of Soave wine by placing emphasis on authenticity. An operation of transparency was introduced, showing the origin and traceable production of the wine, and its respect for environmental and sustainability values. Each member thus becomes an interpreter, witness and conservationist of the Soave territory and its wines.
OUR HISTORY
A hundred years of love for the land don’t just make the vines grow.
Ca’ Rugate is an agricultural business which produces wines of the territory with distinctive and identifiable character that can evoke the land that they derive from, the Soave Classico, Valpolicella and Lessini Durello.
This business has had the knowhow to innovate, reinterpreting the traditions and investing in the vineyards that are most suited to the production of the historic vine varieties.
Their history goes back over a hundred years, inseparably bound up with that of the Tessari family for four generations and with that dark, volcanic soil of the Rugate hill, near the centre of Brognoligo, where it all began.
Already at the beginning of the 20th century, Amedeo Tessari, known as “Mideo”, had foreseen the suitability in the quality of his land and had started to provide his wine for the family Hostelry. From father to son, from hectare to hectare, the history of Ca’ Rugate progressed to the present day.
Over the years the vineyards grew and his son, Fulvio “Beo” Tessari, having just purchased the vineyards in the Monte Fiorentine district, decided to crush the grapes and make a wine. He bought new concrete vats and big barrels; thus the first winery was born at the Rugate around 1950. It wasn’t long before this wine was being bottled and labelled. Fulvio and his father Amedeo took the decision to extend the winery in Bognoligo and invest in new technology. These were years of buzzing activity. The first bottles labelled Ca’ Rugate date from 1986 and Ca’ Rugate wines immediately began to appear on markets outside Italy.
2001 is the year of the fourth generation of Tessari: Michele, son of Amedeo, entered the business. Having trained as an oenologist, he launched a process of company reorganisation both at a strategic level and in management. Progressively, in the first years of the new millennium, he started to expand into the adjacent Valpolicella area, with the purchase of the first 15 hectares. At the same time a project for a new winery was being implemented, technological and functional, to be opened in September 2002 at Montecchia di Crosara, along the Val d’Alpone road.
The quality of a wine is born first in the vineyard, then in the winery.
A rational and progressive expansion, supported by a widespread distribution of the wines which then reached 98 Italian provinces and 42 international marketplaces. In 2006 Michele and his family decided to create a museum of farming culture, putting on display the artefacts referring to historical wine-making which the Tessari family had held onto over the generations. In 2008 they took the step of investing in the neighbouring zone of Lessini Durello, a winegrowing area that had always been kept for the excellent classical method wine production. Today Ca’ Rugate is a thriving activity rooted in its land but with an international flair, with 90 hectares of their own vineyards and a production which both respects the traditions and takes up the innovations, the fruit of a daily work routine conducted conscientiously and with meticulous precision, to ensure continuity and quality without compromise.
Agronomic and economic choices
The focus has always been on nature, the source of agricultural sustenance, scrupulously respected, observed with knowhow. From 2004 all the Ca’ Rugate vineyards are treated with well thought out methods, sustainable for the environment; from fertilizers to the trimming of the rows and the pesticides used. “We have completely abandoned chemical fertilizers, substituting them with cattle manure on a three/five-year rotation, with organic soil conditioners and organo-mineral fertilizers. The aim is to obtain healthy grapes suitable for vinification which does not require corrective action on the must and which preserves the essence of the season’s grapes, enhancing the different features of every harvest.” With this in view, the company makes systematic reference to experts and technicians of the highest level, to guarantee in these terms the best results in production and in quality.
The Independent Winegrowers of Soave
