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The Veneto, in Italy's northeast around Venice and Verona, is the leading wine-producing region of the north by volume and in some years the most prolific region in all of Italy — much of it forgettable, mass produced, and once shipped in oceans to the United States and Britain, yet the region is also home to some great classics.

Three wines define it.

Soave, one of Italy's best-known exported whites, comes from the castle-topped hill town east of Verona and is built on garganega (an old Veronese grape grown since the Renaissance), blended with 'trebbiano di Soave' (actually verdicchio bianco); at its best it is light, fresh and smooth (soave means 'suave'/'smooth'), rising through Soave Classico to Classico Superiore.

DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, "controlled and guaranteed designation of origin") is the top tier of Italy's wine classification pyramid, above DOC, IGT, and Vino da Tavola.

Introduced in 1980, it adds a government tasting-panel approval requirement and a numbered state seal across the bottle neck (the fascetta) on top of the geographic, yield, and production-method rules that already apply to DOC wines — intended to guarantee both origin and a minimum quality bar.

The first four DOCGs, granted in 1980, were Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.