2020 Giusti Massimo Rosso Veneto 750 ml

The Montello hills north of Treviso don’t get much attention from the wine world. Most people who’ve heard of the area know it as Prosecco country, a landscape of gentle slopes and sparkling wine that stretches toward the Dolomites. What fewer people know is that Bordeaux varieties have been growing here for well over a century—longer, in some cases, than in many of the regions that have made their names on Cab and Merlot.

It’s a terrain that suits them. The Abazia estate sits on iron-rich red clay soils that give the wines structure and depth, moderated by the influence of the nearby Piave River and a position that catches cool air descending from the Alps. The result is Cabernet and Merlot with a character of their own—warmer and more immediately giving than Bordeaux, but with the bones to age.

Giusti Wine was founded by Ermenegildo Giusti, an Italian-Canadian entrepreneur who left Treviso as a teenager, built a construction empire in Canada, and returned to his native region in the early 2000s with an ambitious vision: to put the Montello on the world wine map. He invested €20 million in a state-of-the-art underground winery, restored a 12th-century abbey on the estate, and assembled a collection of vineyards across some of the area’s finest sites.

His most consequential decision, though, was hiring Graziana Grassini—the consulting oenologist behind Sassicaia, one of the world’s most celebrated wines—as Giusti’s winemaker. It was the first time Grassini had accepted a project in the Treviso area, and her involvement signals something about what this estate is capable of.

The Massimo is named for Ermenegildo’s first grandson, a wine conceived as a continuation of the family legacy. It’s a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the Abazia estate, aged in previously used barriques to preserve fruit purity and let the terroir speak. The 2020 vintage across the Veneto was a warm, generous year—rich and fruit-forward, with a natural brightness that keeps the wines fresh and alive.