QUSTÒ

Qustò is the great red wine of the Almivisi estate — a blend of Merlot (50%), Cabernet Franc (30%), and Cabernet Sauvignon (20%) that represents the estate's most direct engagement with the Bordelaise blending tradition applied to what the estate argues is a territory of genuine Bordeaux comparability. The 45th parallel, proximity to the sea, two great rivers, and a soil composition very similar to Bordeaux: these are the conditions that Almivisi identifies as making Eastern Venice ideal for a great red wine of the classic Bordeaux variety composition.

The proportions of the blend are considered with care: Merlot at fifty percent provides the generosity, the textural softness, and the immediately accessible fruit character that makes the blend approachable from a relatively young age; Cabernet Franc at thirty percent — a higher proportion than most Bordeaux blends assign — contributes the wine's most distinctive aromatic dimension, the herbaceous-violet-spice register that distinguishes Cabernet Franc from its more celebrated cousin; and Cabernet Sauvignon at twenty percent provides the structural backbone, the aromatic complexity, and the ageing potential that the variety reliably contributes in blends of this ambition.

The Eastern Venice terroir — the specific combination of coastal influence, fluvial soils, and 45th parallel latitude that Almivisi identifies as the estate's most defining characteristic — gives the Bordelaise varieties a freshness and a mineral dimension that the warmer growing conditions of many Italian Bordeaux-influenced wines cannot achieve. Qustò is, in the estate's own conviction, a great red wine from a territory that deserves recognition comparable to what it claims.

Minimum sulphites; direct and undisputed control over the whole winemaking process; the amazing purity that Almivisi's philosophy demands — all of these apply to Qustò as to every wine the estate produces.

Available through UniqueWines.