2024 Ottella Le Creete Lugana 750 ml

When one TINY-production Italian white wine stands out among 5,000 others at a major global wine-tasting event, we jump on it—and that’s exactly what happened when we discovered Ottella Le Creete Lugana at Vinitaly, Italy’s legendary wine fair, a few years ago. 

Even after tasting through some of Italy’s top wines, this aromatic, lemon-kissed Lugana was unforgettable—everything we want in a crisp white wine. Add in stunning member-ratings each year since from the Wine Access faithful, and you’ve got one of the most exceptional white-wine deals going, with one review proclaiming, “This wine delivers in every vintage."

Le Creete comes from the Lugana DOC, an appellation that straddles the border between Lombardy and the Veneto. With vineyards on the southern shores of Lake Garda set amidst castles and buildings from the Middle Ages, it’s easily one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever set eyes on. There, Lugana is the everyday white of choice, a crisp, citrus-scented wine that rivals top French and Italian whites in just about every category—and steals the show in the price department. 

The variety behind this aromatic, lemon-kissed white is known locally as Turbiana. Long thought to be Trebbiano—indeed, the more common name in Lombardy for the grape is Trebbiano di Lugana—then Verdicchio, Turbiana turned out to be sui generis, genetically distinct from the others. 

Le Creete possesses the stylistic similarities of the world’s great whites—vivid and mineral Chardonnays from Chablis or exceptionally dry and crisp Bordeaux Blancs—and delivers a memorable experience in every sip, every time, at an everyday price. 

The story of Ottella began in 1890, when the Montresor family started tending vines on the banks of Lake Frassino, just south of the much larger Lake Garda. You can trace the estate’s name and coat of arms on the label to the 15th century, but you’d be better served looking back to the end of the last Ice Age. That’s when a glacier carved out the valley, creating Italy’s largest lake, which helps moderate temperatures in the vineyard and gifts the region with nutrient-rich, calcareous-clay soils that help bring out the best in the Turbiana that grows there.