Staring at the TV screen on the wall in front of me, and a few tasting glasses in, I listen intently to my diligent sommelier – she hovers nearby, open bottle and wine glassware in hand, as her boss’s uninvited but spontaneous and insightful remarks keep coming. Much to her annoyance – she gets visibly frustrated, her teeth, buttocks and hands clenched, every time her prepared tableside narration is interrupted by my host – I, on the other hand, very much welcome them as an alternative to what would have been his wine expert’s enthusiastic but scripted monologue about what’s in my glass. Clearly animated, her intruding boss and my host proceeds to illustrate his commentary by streaming some of the images from his personal photo library from his iPhone onto the tasting room monitor. His narrative seamlessly switches from the traditional ageing methods he still employs in his 150 year old cellar and the impact of the region’s recently adopted DOCG designation to his favorite ski trails of Cortina d’Ampezzo he effortlessly points out on the wall screen, to his views on the local ski slopes of Ponte di Legno-Tonale on the eponymous pass in the far reaches of Lombardia’s Brescia region compared to Italy’s better-known high-end winter resorts. And everything in between.
He is Giovanni Bertani, the young and charismatic heir to a legendary 300 year old family wine business. Actually longer, the origins of the wine business, one of Italy’s finest, can be traced to the early 1600’s, and the prominent family itself even further back. Together with his mother Bianca and family patriarch Gaetano, the only Bertani of the older generation to stay in the business after his siblings sold out several years ago, Giovanni is actively building on centuries of the family’s wine making tradition, cultivated on their historic estates in Valpolicella, Valpantena, Illasi, and Soave valleys. The new beginning is centered on the palatial Villa Mosconi-Bertani with its historic vineyards, only now mostly under Tenuta Santa Maria label – the Bertani brand, my favorite Amarone for over a decade, was an asset sold as part of the deal and is now owned by others – and, oddly, sort of it the shadow and potentially in competition with the family’s own centuries old brand name.
Bertani needs to special introduction – one of the most iconic Amarone houses, in a league of his own when it comes to differentiation. It stands apart from rival wine makers in the region in his uncompromising adherence to tradition of vinification and aging techniques, the tradition of using large format oak barrels in lieu of commonplace shortcuts, like ditching the larger barrel after a shorter storage time the be followed by accelerated aging in a small barrique where a larger portion of the volume remains in contact with the Ian surface, these days employed by nearly every wine maker in a race to market. He ages his wine much longer than other producers – 7 years minimum, of which 5 years in oak barrels – other producers are fine with just 2 year mandatory storage prescribed by the association. Bertani uses native production and follows traditional drying and storage methods rather than maximizing speed to market, which adds greater scarcity on the market and extends aging potential of his wines to 20 years and beyond.
Bertani is no stranger to continuous transformation and innovation – he has expanded in whites from native Soave grown in a nearby valley to Chardonnay, his ambitious transplant projects include Merlot, made very drinkable (I am usually not a fan) thanks to his partial application to this foreign grape of the drying process used in Amarone and Ripasso – but this almost religious following of the classical process, remains head and shoulders above even producers of the highest stature that make some of Italy’s most expensive wine. Commercial rents left on the table by foregoing the barrique have a silver lining, practically limitless aging potential of the partially dried blend – accelerated vinification undercuts this potential in an impressively self defeating manner, a tolerable price to pay for other producers seduced by a shorter selling cycle and faster payback – but not Bertani. Tenuta Santa Maria, the current project of Gaetano and Giovanni Bertani, sticks to the same age old tradition as the family’s original label. A clear testament to this is a little known fact that Bertani’s 1928 vintage of Amarone, hidden from the Germans on the property during WWII and accidentally discovered in mid 1980’s, – more precisely, Acinatico, as the great wine was known before the name Amarone was coined – is not only still drinkable or palatable after 90 years in the bottle but, according to experts, today remains of exceptional quality, firmness, and body, and in fact continues to improve with every year and every sampling.
This staying power is what separates the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the signal from the noise. If the extra aging and time to market is the price to pay, this redeeming quality is worth the price. Luckily, for the few who can afford it or are important enough to attend, the Bertani family has decided to open a batch of its 1928 vintage bottles for charities and special events this year to mark the 90th anniversary of this singular vintage and their appassimento drying technique. I don’t suggest spending close to $3,000 a bottle, or even a tenth of that, I am simply trying to cement my thesis that the exlibris of this wine maker is exceptional quality and tradition. Always an avid wine enthusiast – over the years I have attended a number of curated wine dinners and spent too much time and money on localwineevents.com and elsewhere searching for that needle in a haystack of a wine pairing, tasting, lecture that would truly stand out in at least some way – after that private tour of the vineyards, villa and cellar, and a tasting and conversation when Giovanni and his mother Bianca spent a couple of hours with us, I couldn’t help but think how much those inflated and overpriced events in NYC and Connecticut would benefit from the presence and personality of a wine steward like Giovanni Bertani, fascinating family story delivered from the horse’s mouth. Both Giovanni and Bianca appear to periodically speak at dinners and events in the US and elsewhere, mostly within the wine industry and at corporate events, and Giovanni is often in the US and is familiar with the NYC food & wine scene.
Villa Mosconi-Bertani is in Abrizzano, just 10 min from Verona. But I would advise against taking this shortcut on the way there. If you have any flexibility, try arriving into Valpolicella from the West – Milan, Lago d’Iseo, the ancient and bite size Lonato del Garda, which is not on the lake, or the fairy tale Sirmione at the Southern end of Lago di Garda – or from the North – from Bolzano or Trento. That way you will approach the villa gradually, after some deliberate driving on SP4 through – and, hopefully, stopping in – at least three of Valpolicella Classico valley’s colorful designated wine communities – Sant’Ambrogio, San Pietro in Cariano, and Fumane. Accustomed to their historic character, semi-rustic scale, and adjusted to wine country topology, you will respond better to the dramatic baroque facade of the Villa Mosconi-Bertani, its front lawn guarded by twin gates, each flanked by two pillars on either side – they will appear as true eye candy, unexpected, rewarding. Easily the most architecturally distinguished of all the wineries I have visited in Italy and beyond – it feels less commercial than others of similar caliber, and I am not sure whether that tasting room with the monitor on the wall is used more for tastings or business development – this villa deserves nothing less than the scenic detour, trust me. Taking instead the path of least resistance, from Verona, you would forego that conditioning of the wine country runway and risk seeing the villa too soon, to a diminished effect.
The wine show in the tasting room, fortuitously interrupted by Giovanni’s impromptu commentary, was preceded by a private tour, guided by the sommelier with the same sense of duty as the tasting. Informative, the tour involved meeting the friendly Bertani dog, and included the beautiful atrium frescos of the villa itself, the 18th century English park in the back, complete with a pond and all sorts of exotic flora fashionable during that period, some of the family’s best vineyards – both of the traditional pergola Veronese variety and those employing a more efficient, higher yielding French guyot vine training method, pioneered by this vineyard in the 1800’s and now popular across Veneto – and last but definitely not least, the 150 year old wine cellar, or a portion of it. There is scuttlebutt that Giovanni and family intend to launch a limited hospitality offering and convert part of Villa Mosconi into rooms for overnight stays, a decidedly welcome development. I don’t believe there is any threat that a small on-premise bed & breakfast would debase the very currency of an exclusive patrician period villa – as so often happens when we as visitors overwhelm, over-use, over-commercialize, and cheapen the very destinations we value most for their authenticity and elegance – wine properties will always remain a niche, rewarding for the minority of appreciative geeks but too weird, too pretentious for the mass tourist, and not quite what they would rather be doing. To this – and to the genius of the Bertani tradition, and to continued success of the family that practically wrote the history of Italian wine – I raise my glass. Expect it to be full of black cherries, dark chocolate, brown sugar, oak, leather, and anything else people like to attribute to a great local vintage.
