Colli Berici is a DOC of the Veneto wine region in north-eastern Italy. The title covers a wide range of wine styles including red, white and rose (rosso, bianco and rosato) wines, a foaming Colli Berici Spumante and a portfolio of varietal wines which reaches comfortably into double figures.
The Colli Berici are a group of hills (colli) which rise up from the alluvial plains just south of Vicenza, at the very heart of Veneto. The name is taken from the hills most notable look-out, Monte Berico, which enjoys an impressive panoramic view over Vicenza city. The geological make-up of the hills suggests they are part of an ancient seabed, due to the prevalence of marine fossils (including corals, algae and urchins) mixed with sand and mud as old as several million years. It also creates a terroir unlike almost any other in Veneto, whose topography is largely flat, and in which the only other hills are part of the lower Alps.
The Colli Berici cover roughly 64 square miles (165 square km) of
central Veneto. The most favored vineyard sites are on south-facing
slopes with a high proportion of gravels and marine deposits. This
combination of a sunny, warm aspect and free-draining, mineral-rich soils is ideal for creating full
phenolic ripeness and mineral complexity in the Colli Berici wines. In
fact, the Colli Berici DOC laws take care to exclude land on the flood
plains or at the bottom of the valleys, and also land with peaty, sandy
soils. The Colli Berici mesoclimate is measurably milder than that on
the lower-lying land below; in fact it is so mild that olive trees, more
often associated with warmer central and southern Italy, flourish in
the area.
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