About Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde
Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde is the small estate of Nicola Campagnola and Ilaria Nidini on the hill of Marano di Valpolicella, at about 500 metres one of the highest and most admired positions in the Classica zone. Nicola's family has grown grapes here since the 1800s; he restored the cellar in the ancestral farmhouse and named the winery after the ancient chapel of Santa Maria Valverde nearby. South facing terraces of chalky clay carry Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Molinara and Oseleta, and the entire production is about ten thousand individually numbered bottles a year, raised in French oak.
Prices are for take away and shipping. The wine bar serves from its own list.
The winery
About Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde
History
Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde is a small family winery in Marano di Valpolicella, in the Valpolicella Classica zone near Verona. The family describes a passion handed down over five generations. In the late 1700s two brothers, Costantino and Benedetto Campagnola, received the farmhouse and lands of the old Posta di Marano from their father, an army officer, and the vineyards already appear in the Napoleonic land register compiled between 1807 and 1816.
In the mid 1800s Carlo Campagnola opened a wine shop under the Porta Borsari in Verona. When he died young his widow Caterina, mother of nine, kept the farm running, bought more land and grew the wine trade.
The land and the vineyards
In the 1930s Giovanni and his brothers and sisters inherited the estate and built a new winery at Paverno, in Valgatara di Marano. Renzo carried on the work, and in 1990 his son Nicola took over the vineyards and rebuilt them with a focus on single crus.
The vines grow on hillsides at about 500 metres above sea level, in cooler air than the valley floor. The estate calls itself a small boutique winery, with limited, numbered production that it describes as fully artisanal. After the restructuring of 1990 the family worked parcel by parcel, so each cru could be judged and bottled on its own merits.
The wines
The range covers the classic Valpolicella family: Valpolicella Classico, Valpolicella Superiore, Ripasso, Amarone della Valpolicella and Recioto della Valpolicella. A Cabernet Sauvignon called Savinè sits alongside them. Third party descriptions list the local grapes Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara and Oseleta.
Amarone is the winery's stated focus, and visitors are shown the traditional drying room where the grapes are dried before pressing.
Today
The family likes to quote a motto that tradition is a chain of successful innovations, and it says it balances old methods with a sustainable future. The estate welcomes visitors for vineyard walks, a look at the drying room and a tasting, so the cellar door is open to anyone who wants to see Amarone being made at close range.
- Founded
- Late 1700s (farmhouse and lands); Nicola took over vineyards in 1990
- Main grapes
- Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara, Oseleta
- Owners
- Family (five generations)