Soave, Veneto later sold the castle to the Gritti noble family. In 1797-1805 the city was under French rule. In 1809 there were small fights between French and Austrian troops in the vicinity. Later Soave was included in the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, and in 1866 became part of Italy. The Castle of Soave is a typical medieval military edifice, commanding the neighbourhood of the city from the Tenda Hill. It comprises a "mastio" (donjon) and three lines of walls forming three courts of different size. The outer line, with a gate and a draw bridge, is the most recent, built by the
Soave (wine) 2001, a separate Soave Superiore DOCG was created for the 2002 vintage that included revised boundaries that covered some areas of the original "classico" zone and excluded others for reasons that wine expert Oz Clarke described as unclear and ""Byzantine"". The revised boundaries and additional DOCG requirements that dealt with vine training and other viticultural practices promoted sharp criticism from Soave growers, and beginning as early as 2003 several voluntarily withdrew themselves from the DOC/G and produced wines under IGT designations. The Soave production zone is situated in the eastern part of the hills in the province of Verona (north