Custoza food and travel guide

Custoza food travel — Credit: Custoza Consorzio

(Image credit: Custoza Consorzio)

This content was produced in partnership with the Consorzio Tutela Vino Custoza.

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Custoza and food

With its pleasant, fresh and slightly aromatic nature, Custoza has always been considered as an excellent white wine aperitif as well as a faithful companion at the table due to its extreme versatility.

It goes well with local dishes, like soppressa (a medium-coarse salami), Custoza broccoli, tortellini from Valeggio, pappardelle with chicken liver, tench risotto, grilled chicken, pike in caper and anchovy sauce, grilled lake sardines and Rigatel del Castel, a cheese from Villafranca.

Outside the production area, Custoza is perfect with both fresh and saltwater fish. It is a good accompaniment with fried fish and vegetables.

Excellent with cold cuts (cured ham, cured pork, bacon, salami). It is remarkable with vegetable appetizers and enhances first courses, such as pasta with tomato sauce, or vegetable risottos.

Custoza and travel

Venturing into Custoza’s nine production municipalities – Lazise, Pastrengo, Bussolengo, Peschiera, Castelnuovo del Garda, Sona, Sommacampagna, Valeggio sul Mincio and Villafranca – is pure enchantment.

In just a few kilometres, the territory offers an enormous variety of landscape, going from the quiet waters of Lake Garda to the sweet River Mincio valley and the rolling morainic hills of the high plane.

Palaces, courtyard complexes, villas, churches, parishes, monuments to commemorate humanistic ideals, fortifications dating back to the Italian Risorgimento, can all be found along tarmac roads and narrow stony lanes.

This area, with its green woods, peach groves and tall cypress trees, still resists the eyesores of urbanization, maintaining its rural charm. Almost every town has a castle, standing proof of its past territorial struggles.

Verona airport is located in Villafranca, one of Custoza Doc’s municipalities, making a stopover extremely easy.

The castle here is not to be missed as is a stop at the historical Caffè Fantoni, where the typical local puff pastries were invented. For vintage car lovers, Nicolis Museum is well worth a visit. And for sport enthusiasts, there are various attractions: four golf courses, four horse riding centres and a cycle path from Peschiera to Valeggio for bikers.

Entertainment parks are also within easy reach with Gardaland at Castelnuovo and Canevaworld at Lazise. The Sigurtà Park in Valeggio is a botanical and gardening masterpiece while the Natura Viva fauna and safari park at Pastrengo makes yet another pleasant day out. If relaxation is the aim, then the spa park at Villa dei Cedri in Lazise is the place to go.

For information about bookings and restaurants: www.terredelcustoza.com or www.stradadelcustoza.com.

Three wines to try

Aldo Adami Custoza Doc 2017

Appealing fragrance, hints of rose, pineapple and a citrus reminder. Well-paced, agile, edgy, fresh like the wind but with a sharp shoulder. It closes with pleasant persistence.

No importers

Recchia “Poderi del Roccolo” Brut

Aromatic verve with hints of citrus fruit and flowers. Fresh tasty-acidic current that sustains all the gustatory dynamics.

Importer USA: $10.99 RS LIPMAN COMPANY – www.rslipman.com

Importer UK: £8.50 Woodwinters

Cantina di Custoza “Custodia” Custoza Superiore Doc 2016

The fragrant plot bursts with hints of pineapple and honey. All-encircling, round mouth, pleasant in its softness. Persuasive and quite tasty, the finale closes in modulation.

UK importer: £12 EUROWINES www.eurowines.co.uk/

USA importerr: $15 Premium brand inc. – Forest Hill