Summary
Ottella is one of the oldest and most influential estates in Lugana – the white wine origin on the southern shore of Lake Garda that has grown over recent decades from a regional insider tip into an international classic. The Montresor family farms around 90 hectares in San Benedetto di Lugana, a hamlet of Peschiera del Garda, and works above all with the local lead variety Turbiana. Today the brothers Francesco and Michele Montresor run the estate in its fifth generation. Their range shows the variety at several levels of ripeness and ageing: crisp and fresh in the Lugana DOC, dense and saline in the single-vineyard Le Creete, mature and layered in the Riserva Molceo.
History
The name Ottella goes back to an old local legend; the family crest in the logo still recalls it. What is documented above all is this: the Montresors are among the oldest winegrowing families of Lugana. Sources from the late 19th century describe the estate as the Lugana producer of the province of Verona – at a time when wine from the southern side of Lake Garda was still drunk largely locally.
The decisive figure of the modern era was Lodovico Montresor, a wine entrepreneur and passionate art collector. In the 1960s he was among those who had the Lugana growing area described and delimited in technical terms – groundwork from which the Lugana DOC emerged in 1967, one of Italy's earliest denominations of origin. His interest in art and his standards for the wine still shape the house today.
His sons Francesco and Michele Montresor now run the estate in the fifth generation. Under them Ottella has grown considerably: the vineyard area today stands at around 90 hectares, production at roughly 900,000 bottles a year. In 2020 the new cellar was completed, designed by the architect Francesco Copersino – a building that brings production, tasting and rotating art installations together under one roof.
Location & Terroir
Lugana lies south of Lake Garda and stretches across the border between Veneto and Lombardy. Ottella farms plots in the heartland – in San Benedetto di Lugana as well as in the municipalities of Sirmione, Pozzolengo and Desenzano del Garda.
The soil is decisive: heavy, whitish, calcareous clay from glacial moraine sediments, known locally as creta. It stores water, keeps the vines supplied even through hot summers, and gives the wines body, structure and the saline, mineral drive for which Lugana is known. The name of the single-vineyard wine Le Creete points directly to these soils.
Then there is the lake itself. That great body of water acts as a heat store, softening late frosts, damping heat peaks and providing cool nights and steady air movement. From this combination – warm days, cool nights, water-holding clay – comes the balance of ripeness and freshness that gives the Turbiana wines their length.
Style & Philosophy
At the centre stands Turbiana, genetically identical to Trebbiano di Lugana and closely related to Verdicchio from the Marche. Ottella does not read the variety as a simple summer-wine grape but as a white variety with real ageing potential – and therefore vinifies it deliberately in several tiers.
The entry wines ferment in temperature-controlled stainless steel and preserve citrus fruit, white blossom and freshness. The more ambitious wines go further: longer lees contact, partial malolactic fermentation, part of the ageing in wooden casks and barriques. This gives them creaminess, texture and depth without losing the saline, bitter-almond core. A path of its own is ageing in amphora, with which the estate aims to show the variety as undisguised as possible.
Beyond the wine, Ottella sees itself as a place where landscape, architecture and art belong together – the cellar doubles as an exhibition space. The ambition to make origin tangible runs from the vineyard right through to the visitor experience.
Notable Sites & Wines
The range revolves around Turbiana, rounded out by sparkling wine, rosé and a few reds:
- Lugana DOC – the house classic: fresh, citrusy, saline, with a bitter-almond finish
- Le Creete – a single-vineyard wine from old vines on clay-rich soils, picked late and aged for several months; denser and far more structured than the entry wine
- Molceo – the Lugana DOC Riserva from 100% Trebbiano di Lugana, with partial malolactic fermentation and around 18 months on the fine lees, mostly in steel and partly in wooden casks and barriques; the estate's prestige wine
- Back to Silence – a Turbiana fermented and aged in clay amphorae
- Campo Sireso – the best-known red: a barrique-aged blend of Corvina, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled as IGT
The grapes for the white wines come from small plots in San Benedetto di Lugana, Sirmione, Pozzolengo and Desenzano del Garda – each with its own character, which is what makes the tiered structure of the range possible in the first place.
Awards
Ottella is regularly listed in the leading Italian wine guides such as Gambero Rosso, Bibenda and Vitae (AIS); the Riserva Molceo is among the most frequently awarded Lugana wines of all and is considered by many tasters a benchmark for the appellation's aged style. In 2025 the estate was also honoured in the Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism Awards in the architecture and landscape category – for the new building that unites viticulture, architecture and contemporary art.
More important than individual trophies, though, is the estate's role for the origin itself: across five generations the Montresor family has helped ensure that Lugana is now seen as a distinctive, serious white wine origin with ageing potential – and not as just another holiday wine from Lake Garda.