Piave is a DOC of the Veneto wine region in north-eastern Italy. As well as being the name of the river which flows north-west to south-east through eastern Veneto, it is the name of the region's most famous cheese; like the Piave wine, it is protected and regulated under EU law. Perhaps obviously, the wine DOC was named after the former, not the latter.
The Piave viticultural zone is the largest in Veneto, and covers a geographical area larger than Bardolino, Valpolicella, Soave and Gambellara combined. To the south are the Venetian Lagoon and the northern Adriatic Sea; to the west are the flat, fertile, over-watered plains which form a triangle between Treviso, Vicenza and Chioggia. The DOC laws, first drawn up in 1963, cite 50 communes in the Treviso province which are covered entirely or in part by the title, but the wetlands around Venice make it much trickier to delimit the DOC boundaries in the Venezia province. Rather than relying on convenient commune boundaries, the DOC are forced to stipulate in great detail which land is and is not fit for the production of Piave DOC wines. This latter task takes no fewer than three pages and more than 1500 words.
© Wikimedia/Zavijavah
Piave wines can be both blends (Piave Rosso and Piave Bianco) and varietals. Most of them are dry, but dried-grape passito wines are made with Verduzzo and Raboso grapes. The red wines may bear the title riserva if aged for two years and if they reach a final level of 1% alcohol by volume higher than the required minimum for the standard wines. A greater alcohol level is an indirect indicator of quality as it is directly linked to the ripeness, and thus the potential alcohol, of the grapes at harvest. In theory, riper grapes make more flavorful wines.
Cabernet heads the list of Piave's varietal wines, and is a blend of Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc, and Carmenere (their erstwhile blending partner in Bordeaux). Carmenere may also be a varietal in its own right, as may another Bordeaux lynchpin, Merlot, and local variety Raboso. The white varietals made under the Piave name are Verduzzo, Tai (formerly known as Tocai), Chardonnay and the increasingly important Manzoni Bianco.
Over the past couple of decades Raboso has proved popular with local people and successful in vineyards. It has become a type of flagship grape for eastern Veneto, with Manzoni Bianco as its white wine counterpart. In 2011 the Piave Melanotte DOCG was created, singling out the finest Raboso wines from the Piave region. To earn this title a wine must be made from 95% Raboso and aged for three years before release. For more information, see Piave Melanotte.
Rather neatly, the Piave DOC catchment area fills in the DOC jigsaw which covers the entire Adriatic coastline from Venice eastwards, right across Friuli-Venezia Giulia to the border with Slovenia, and up into the Alpine foothills. It slots into the gap left between Lison-Pramaggiore to the east, Friuli Grave to the north-east, the Prosecco lands of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene to the north and Montello e Colli Asolani to the north-west. The south and west do not offer vineyards of DOC quality, from the Venetian Lagoon and the northern Adriatic in the south to the over-watered plains in the west that form a triangle between Treviso, Vicenza and Chioggia.
