TENUTA SANT'ANTONIO'S NEWSLETTER AN ITALIAN WINERY IN THE HEART OF VALPOLICELLA

story of the winery in 3 spots

Family first
“The family is our base. We started literally from nothing, with a certainly not so great campaign that was to be used to feed a family, to move a house, to allow to six children to go to school. Those were the years when agriculture was truly multifunctional, with no real specialization. Until about the mid 90's there was no real awareness of the real potential of vines such as Corvina and Garganega. In those years our cooperative suggested us to plant varieties such as Riesling, Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, varieties that today have almost disappeared from our denomination”.

Our Amarone
“The first bottled grape harvest was that of 1995. They were mainly bottles of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon and only slightly Amarone. Only in 1997 did we begin to increase the production of Amarone and Ripasso despite having in our range also Chardonnay and Cabernet ". But it's no wonder that in those years the total production of Amarone barely reached 4 million bottles. Almost nobody then understood the potential of this great wine”.

Our own style
“Over time we understood that he did not like the road of super concentrated wines but that we wanted more elegant and drinkable wines, much more consistent with our production philosophy but also with the vocation of our territory and our vines. We therefore took risks from even the most commercial canons of Amarone, but this has allowed us to recognize ourselves in our identity today where we feel good and on which we try to improve every day. We were inspired by the masters of our territory, like Romano Dal Forno, trying to develop our own style. Today we invest daily in our production, on international markets and on the Italian market”.

The harvest 2018 in Valpolicella
Tiziano Castagnedi about the harvest

How was 2018 Valpolicella’s harvest?
It has been a very fertile year. After a difficult and pretty rainy spring, which foreshadowed some problems for the health of the plants, we had a rise in temperatures that has removed any possible fungal disease. On the other hand we had to irrigate afterwards because of the hot climate and the absence of rain. Vineyards in the hills hold back less water in the soil and plants go into water shortage more easily.
Moreover, we made the green harvest this summer, so the quality of the grapes is the one that we are looking for, but those who have not done the same have plants full of bunches and there's no more space in the cellar to put them!

At Tenuta Sant'Antonio you care a lot about less treatments in the vineyards: any particular problem this year?
Not really, because the warm climate has made it easier for us. Drought years reduce the need for treatments in the vineyard, and so it was. The pathologies of the plants have been few and easy to manage. The chance to manage irrigation allows us to regulate the flow of water in the vineyards. It happpens the opposite during rainy vintages, when we can't do so much against that (as in 2014, when we did not produce Amarone because the grapes quality wasn't high enough).

Any forecast about the wines?
It's a bit early because we still have the must in the tanks, but I think the reds will be the best this year. We are also happy with the whites, but the reds have lived a significant temperature gap in September between night and day. This is exactly what it takes to enhance the perfumes, increase the pigments and balance the ripening.

Our vineyards, that are exposed on the hills, got the best from sunshine and ventilation, which are necessary for the perfect ripening of the bunches. Every year I am surprised by how much the vine is able to adapt to different conditions, it is an incredible plant, a pest, but if it is grown, is able to give back so much!