In his hometown of Gambellara, a sleepy village about halfway between Verona and Vicenza, Davide Vignato is making waves with his stony, acid-driven white wines. The forgotten neighbor to nearby Soave, with which it shares the Garganega grape, Gambellara is shining thanks to young growers such as Davide, who have traded stratospheric yields of underripe grapes for a focus on quality through organic farming and low-intervention winemaking. After all, Gambellara’s peculiar terroir—ancient volcanic hillsides littered with chunks of basalt—is well worth a closer look.
     Davide’s latest creation, a sparkling wine of Garganega refermented in bottle without disgorgement, is an altogether different take on these rocky slopes. His approach to the sui lieviti style is a unique one: the base wine ferments to dryness with native yeast in stainless steel, and completes its malolactic fermentation to ensure it is stable without needing sulfur. Several months later, he mixes in a calculated dose of pressed juice from Garganega grapes that had been drying since harvest—a sweet nectar intended to set off a secondary fermentation. The blended, semi-sweet wine is then crown-capped and left to referment in bottle.
     Primo Incontro (First Encounter)—named for the wine’s suitability to casual meet-ups among friends, but also a nod to the total novelty of the style—is akin to a yeasty brew of ground-up minerals bisected by a bolt of laser-sharp, mouth-watering acidity. No filtration, no disgorgement, no sulfur—this is unadulterated, bone-dry, incredibly stimulating, low-alcohol Garganega frizzante from the unheralded volcanic hills of Gambellara. It’s an encounter well worth repeating.