Exploring Northern Italy’s lesser-known grapes: Lake Como

Part 5 jump to main content.

Preamble

In late June 2025, my 50th birthday celebrations were put on hold as my partner’s parents decided on an extended trip to Europe, perhaps their last, for which I was volunteered to chauffeur us around Northern Italy for 2 weeks during one of the most intense heatwaves since the week I was born.

Her mum was determined to see all cinque of the Cinque Terre villages and some of Milan’s popular tourist sites. Her dad came along for the ride, perhaps watching more table tennis and political clickbait on his iPad than the historical sites, and asking why there was only Italian food when Singapore had much more variety (The Three Amigos anyone?).

With two weeks to fill, my only stipulation was that we start with a few days in Tortona, home of my favourite grape: Timorasso, the grape and region that spurred me to start writing about wine.
I knew I’d naturally set myself ad-hoc side missions to seek out lesser-known native grapes in every subsequent destination.

The Itinerary:

• Tortona (Piemonte) – starting off in one of my happy places in Italy, exploring Derthona Timorasso wines and seeing familiar faces.
• Levanto (Liguria) – a seaside town as a base to explore the villages of Cinque Terre (and seek out the local grapes Bosco, Vermentino Nero and rarer Rossese Bianco and Piccabòn)
• Parma (Emilia-Romagna) – I knew about the ham. Other than that, it was a good base to visit Japanese winemaker Shun Minowa and discover some of the 17 Lambrusco clones such as Grasparossa.
• Bergamo (Lombardy) – a relatively arbitrary choice based on its location, the appeal of an old town, and an opportunity to taste the rare grapes Moscato di Scanzo (also Italy’s smallest DOCG) and Erbanno
• Como (Lombardy) – chosen as I naively thought it would be cooler in the mountains, and for its proximity to the airport to return the hire car. I also discovered the relatively rare local grape Verdese
• Milan (Lombardy) – The Last Supper, Milan Duomo and that fancy shopping arcade next to it were on the bucket list for our visitors. I was also able to track down one of the few bottles of Cascina Lieto’s Moscato in Milan, from Japanese winemaker Hiroto Sasaki.

The itinerary map can be seen in the image above. My wine haul can be seen on Instagram here

Day 11 – Como

After a slow morning and another cracking coffee at Bugan Coffee Lab in Bergamo, we set off for the short 1.5-hour drive to Como, choosing to avoid Milan and motorways and take the backroads to skirt past the neighbouring lakes. It was a lot less scenic than we had expected, but killed a little more time before check-in.  We had booked the parents into the Hotel Metropole & Suisse (map), which had on-site parking to let us leave the car with the peace of mind that it would be safe from further scratches.

The parents were happy to do their own thing (lunch at the hotel and an ice-cream next door), while we checked in to our apartment, a mercifully brief process, and headed out to get our bearings.

Como is a small town that’s easy to navigate, with a grid system in the old centre, a grungy, touristy lakeside block around the pier, and a more local, boutique-y vibe further west, past the 24-hour Carrefour.

We identified a few distinct types of tourists in Como (by which I mean that Amanda made an astute observation that I resolved to put in my blog):

• those that wanted to look glamorous and say they’ve been to Como, and
• those that don’t really know what they’re there for, but want to say they’ve been to Como.

We’re not really the glamorous types, and had no real reason to be there other than padding out a fortnight with the parents. And I thought it may be cooler during the summer heat. I was wrong.

I didn’t take many photos in Como apart from food, wine and a few impromptu street scenes that caught my attention (below).

Aperativo at Enoteca da Gigi

One of my first stops was at Enoteca da Gigi, a wine bar and bottle shop with friendly staff that told me about the local grape Verdese. The best producer of Verdese is perhaps Cantine Angelinetta, way up on the north coast of the lake, about a 1.5-hour drive away, a tad too far for me on this occasion.

We hung around in the air-conditioned bar with a glass of heavily oaked Tuscan Vermentino trying to do Burgundy, and a mineral-driven dry Riesling from near Pavia (half way between Milan and Genoa – a little more “local” than Tuscany, and a shorter drive than Angelinetta, so local enough.

Lunch at Pronobis

We grabbed lunch just around the corner at Pronobis, a wine bar/enoteca/bistro with a few “affordable” table wines by the glass, and a much more inspiring Slovenian option that I couldn’t bring myself to order as it wasn’t “local” enough (although Slovenia isn’t that much further away than Tuscany).

The food was spot-on with a refreshing Gazpacho soup helping bring down our internal body temperatures to something closer to feeling human, and a pasta to fill us up. After the meal, the manager/owner told us about how his colleague loves travelling to Belfast, and how he himself had excellent memories of biking around Scotland. A charming bonding moment before he had to return to the busy restaurant.

Specialty Coffee

Right beside Prenobis was the newly opened Wolfox Coffee serving specialty coffee. They were still finding their feet, and the hipster choice of vinyl records being played varied from from relaxing jazz, to experimental squawky jazz that set your teeth on edge – we wondered whether it was a clever tactic to speed up the turnover of customers. I’d like to think this theory was true, as despite being open for only a week or two, it had been discovered by the usual digital nomads, ordering a latte and taking a table for the whole morning.

The coffee was excellent, although they do pander for the muggles with flavoured syrups (a red flag for me if I have the choice of other cafés), but they had the good taste and decency to print this in tiny font on the menu and keep the offending pumps out of plain site.

Day trips and boat tours

Truth be told, we were going through the motions at this point, and padding out the fortnight. None of us had the energy or motivation to venture too far in the heat.

There are some interesting looking boat trips on the lake available. Either via the ferry (a 1-hour queue in the heat to get a ticket that may not even guarantee boarding … no thanks), or some smaller boats around the pier that would require boarding via a gangplank as the boat bobbed up and down; a near impossibility for someone with limited eyesight and mobility. We instead reverted to the norm – eating and drinking with a token walk between venues.

Dinner at Locanda Angioni (map)

We found a lovely place (with aircon) for dinner that was less meaty and less touristy than many other options in town.

There was a decent wine list, nothing local by the glass, so I went for a glass of Collio Ribolla Gialla, a grape for which I had a new-found appreciationg from the other legs on this trip, while Amanda went for a glass of Ferghettina Franciacorta Brut.

The Ribolla was fresh and mineral with a light phenolic grip, pairing wonderfully with the lightness and freshness of the seafood dishes.
The Franciacorta had yeasty aromas with lemon freshness and a nip of red fruit (strawberry/cherry). Fine, yet foamy bubbles, the palate was complex with the yeasty brioche and a bruised apple character.

Dessert took the form of overly sweet gelati from a busy, tourist orientated gelateria.

Day 12 – Como

With the intense heat, and the end of the holiday approaching, we were happy to potter about in the morning, making the most of Wolfox Coffee before looking around for lunch and dinner options.

A slow grazing lunch at

The parents were fine to skip lunch and join us for dinner, while we installed ourselves at Vineria Vitani (map), an Aladin’s Cave of wine with a library vibe – several small rooms with floor to ceiling wine.

They had a modest food menu, and most interestingly, a bottle of orange Verdese that I had spotted earlier in the day, so a slow boozy lunch in a quiet wine bar was on the cards.

Verdese

Not to be confused with the French Verdesse grape, Verdese is native to the Lake Como area. More commonly used in blends with Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling Renano, only a few producers make a single varietal Verdese, and we were lucky enough to come across perhaps the only Verdese made as an orange wine, albeit with only very subtle skin contact influence.

Bacca 2023, La Costa : 100% Verdese with gentle skin maceration; very accessible. Light tamarind and spicy peach aromas. Tannins are closer to a ripe red apple flesh with subtle apricot flavours. Acidity is towards the medium range. Alcohol was a manageable 11.5%.

It went wonderfully with the aperativo nibbles (olives, watermelon, crunchy things and prosciutto), Cantabrian anchovies on toast and mixed tomato/basil/goats cheese/roasted pumpkin seed – not a bad menu for a wine bar.

The bread was excellent artisan fayre, supplied by the wonderfully named ARSO (map) which, in hindsight, I wished I had visited to take a photo posing by their sign.

Vineria Vitani’s menu featured a chocolate tasting flight – which was enticingly displayed on the counter. Google, Maps revealed that that the supplier, Myo Cioccolateria (map), was a short walk away in a part of town we hadn’t yet visited, so we set off to discover a new part of town and some artisanal, hopefully bean-to-bar chocolate.

Alas, the store was closed for the holidays, and we stopped the nearby Vegami, a vegan deli with local beers, natural wines and aircon to cool down alongside our beers.

Disappointing dinner

We wanted something simple for dinner. Pizza and pasta would do. We opted for Latteria San Fedele, which looked enticing, but turned out to be a bit of a tourist trap with an over-priced wine list. The food was good, but not great, and they had a local wine by the glass: La Sciùra 2025, Sala Agricoltura – a fairly basic wine. Unexciting apple. Soda / chalk minerals. Like an average Muscadet sur lie.

Day 13 – Como to Milan and a minor miracle

Given the logistics, back-tracking, parent’s suitcases that were large enough for them to sleep in, Amanda opted to taxi them to the hotel in Milan, and leave me to return the car and handle the return process and negotiate the cost of the damages.

At the last minute, she had a brainwave to try applying toothpaste to the scratch to see what would happen. A miracle! Slowly but surely it disappeared. It turns out that it was a thick line of rubber or plastic that was sitting on top of the paintwork, and just felt like a scratch to idiots like ourselves, the actual paintwork was still in tact.

While Amanda loaded her parents into the taxi, I put the toothpaste, a toothbrush, some tissues, some of my drinking water, and ultimately my fingernails to work, removing black mark while building up a suitable layer of sweat for the drive to the airport. We’re still kicking ourselves for not having tried this back in Levanto, and having provided ourselves with a mild backdrop of anxiety throughout the trip.

Verdese for the lads

I managed to pick up a bottle of Cantina Angelinetta’s Verdese to bring home. Keep an eye out on my blog (better still, sign up for the mailing list) and social media for the tasting notes.

The walk back around town on day 3 to pick it up was quite charming as I passed our original lunch spot, Pronobis, and got a wave from the owners. Perhaps they remembered our N Ireland / Scotland chat. Perhaps they noticed I was one of the few people that stayed more than 2 days. Most likely it was due in part to the silly hat and shirt.

Next up – Milan. An opportunity to finally visit The Last Supper, the cathedral, and a quest to find a bottle from Cascina Lieto, one of the few Japanese winemakers in Italy.

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