Calvarino, rebel with a cause, turns 50

One of Italy’s most famous and long-lived white wines, Pieropan’s Calvarino, was in the spotlight last April when the Pieropan family presented a historic vertical going back to 1973, the first commercial vintage. Half a century of an iconic wine was clearly something to celebrate.

The tasting took place in the spectacular new cellars the Pieropans have built into the hills just outside Soave, when their historic premises, the 16th-century Palazzo Pulicci bang in the middle of town, could no longer accommodate the ambitions of the next generation. Leonildo Pieropan’s...