Loredan Gasparini· Montello, Veneto

The wine that matters here is Venegazzù Capo di Stato, a Bordeaux blend grown on the Montello hill in the Veneto, from vines first planted in 1967, and one of the original Italian Cabernets to be taken seriously. The name comes from a head of state who is said to have ordered it by the case; whatever the truth of that, the wine has earned its reputation on its own terms.

Lorenzo Palla runs the estate now, the second generation, across forty-two hectares of clay-limestone and volcanic gravel. The Capo di Stato is built in the Bordeaux mould, Cabernet-led, raised in part in new oak, and in warm years like 2020 it carries real weight without tipping into heaviness.

For a Veneto better known for Prosecco and Amarone, this is the outlier I keep: a proper, ageworthy Cabernet with five decades of history behind it.