2021 Cantine di Ora Il Casato Pinot Grigio Rose delle Venezie Italy 750 ml

We’ve tasted and offered some under-$15 wines that pack a seemingly impossible amount of vibrancy and complexity for the price. Yet there’s only one that our Master Sommelier, Sur Lucero, called “perhaps the most compelling under-$15 wine that I have sourced.”

It’s the 2021 Cantine di Ora Il Casato Pinot Grigio Rosé, and its 97-point score puts it in the company of top bottlings from the Veneto and Friuli. 

When we got a taste of this rosé, it didn’t just live up to the hype—it eclipsed it. A bottle that seamlessly blends the fresh acidity and refreshing fruit we love in Pinot Grigio with a texture and minerality that will enthrall fans of Provençal rosés, we didn’t just want another glass or another bottle—we wanted as much as we could get for Wine Access members.

It’s rare to find rosés crafted from Pinot Grigio—most of it goes into white wines—but they’re some of the most refreshing, satisfying ones out there. As Pinot Grigio ripens, its skin darkens just slightly, and brief skin contact during fermentation gives the wine a vibrant pink hue.

Cantine di Ora culled this wine from the verdant hills and valleys of the Veneto and Trentino, the latter of which was Wine Enthusiast’s 2020 Wine Region of the Year, producing white wines that the publication says “boast freshness and finesse.” Here, the soaring peaks of the Dolomites shelter the vines while warm currents run through the valleys, creating diurnal temperature swings that produce this wine’s excellent balance of ripeness and acidity. 

While aging on the lees, the wine gains body and refreshing smoothness, emerging as a triumphant rosé.