Soave

Soave sits at forty meters at the foot of the Lessini hills, twenty kilometers east of Verona, on the eastern edge of the city's territory. The walls that ring the centro storico enclose the town below the hill; the castle stands above it on its own rise, so the fortified circuit at street level and the fortress on the height read as two separate defensive works from two different periods, joined by the same walled perimeter that ties the lower town to the slope. The first defensive works on the hill went up against Hungarian raids, long before the walls around the town itself were added.

The 7,000 inhabitants share their name with 7,000 hectares of Soave DOC, planted across thirteen communes east of Verona, with a minimum of seventy percent Garganega grape. Palazzo Cavalli, built in 1411, faces the Piazza dell'Antenna inside the walls, the civic and commercial center of the walled settlement below the castle. The town's name marks both the place and the wine grown around it in roughly equal measure, a fortified hill settlement whose economy and identity now run on the vineyards spreading from its base.