Italy · Soave, Gambellara & Lessini (eastern Verona / western Vicenza)

Azienda Agricola Camerani Marinella

Marinella Camerani farms 22 hectares above Mezzane di Sotto in the eastern Valpolicella hills, growing Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella under full biodynamic certification. Corte Sant'Alda is the only estate in the Veneto certified for both organic and biodynamic viticulture. Gambero Rosso named Camerani Winemaker of the Year for 2024.

The producer

Marinella Camerani runs Corte Sant'Alda from a hillside above Mezzane di Sotto in the eastern Valpolicella, where her three properties span from roughly 350 to 600 metres across the Mezzane valley. No other estate in the Veneto carries both organic and biodynamic certification. That position is the product of a specific decision made in the mid-1980s, when Camerani took over the family vineyard and chose to reorient everything around soil health rather than cellar technology, studying biodynamic principles with Nicolas Joly at his Savennières estate in the Loire Valley before converting the whole operation back in Valpolicella.

The range follows the classical Valpolicella framework: Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, and Rondinella across four red expressions from light fresh Valpolicella through Ripasso to Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG and the sweet Recioto, plus a Garganega-based Soave DOC. Approximately 140,000 bottles come from hand-harvested fruit across the three hill properties each year. Gambero Rosso named Camerani Winemaker of the Year for its Vini d'Italia 2024 guide, citing her as one of the greatest interpreters of the historical wines of Valpolicella, a recognition the guide had first offered around 2008.

Known for

Biodynamically farmed Valpolicella, Ripasso, Amarone, and Recioto from three hill properties in the eastern Valpolicella.

Notable facts

The story

The French Pioneer and the Valpolicella Vineyard

In the mid-1980s, Marinella Camerani took over her family's Valpolicella vineyard above Mezzane di Sotto and almost immediately looked outside the region for direction. The Valpolicella model at the time was cellar-centred: modern fermenters, controlled temperatures, and Amarone built for international wine lists. Camerani travelled to the Loire Valley to study with Nicolas Joly, the Savennières producer who had converted his own estate to biodynamic principles and was making a public argument that soil and vine health were the only things in wine that a producer could actually control. She came back, converted the whole estate, and kept converting for years. No other Veneto producer followed her all the way to dual certification in both organic and biodynamic viticulture. When Gambero Rosso named her Winemaker of the Year for the 2024 guide, the citation noted what Corte Sant'Alda had been for forty years: a Valpolicella estate doing something no one else in the region had attempted or replicated.

From the atlas

Azienda Agricola Camerani Marinella

At A Glance

The Producer

Marinella Camerani runs Corte Sant'Alda from a hillside above Mezzane di Sotto, a village in the eastern Valpolicella hills. No other estate in the Veneto carries both organic and biodynamic certification. That distinction is not an accident of geography or scale. It is the product of a specific decision Camerani made in the mid-1980s when she took over her family's vineyard and chose to reorient the whole operation around soil health rather than cellar technology.

The estate covers 22 hectares spread across three separate properties, farming the classical Valpolicella grape blend of Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, and Rondinella, plus Garganega for white Soave. The range runs from the lightest fresh Valpolicella through Ripasso to Amarone and the sweet Recioto. In 2024, Gambero Rosso named Camerani Winemaker of the Year for its Vini d'Italia guide, citing her as one of the greatest interpreters of Valpolicella's historical wines. A first recognition came from the same guide around 2008. Forty years of committed biodynamic farming separates those two citations.

Place

Valpolicella sits in the hills north and northwest of Verona, where the Lessini foothills drop toward the Adige plain. The eastern Valpolicella, sometimes called Valpolicella Est or Valpantena, runs through the Mezzane and Illasi valleys. It sits outside the classic Valpolicella Classico boundary to the west, but the elevation, clay-limestone soils, and diurnal temperature swings push the same grape varieties toward brighter acidity and slightly more aromatic freshness than the warm valley floors closer to Lake Garda.

Within this zone, Corte Sant'Alda's three properties span from roughly 350 to 600 metres. The main estate headquarters sits at around 350 metres above Mezzane di Sotto. Adalia occupies a western slope. Podere Castagné reaches up to 600 metres, a significant altitude for Valpolicella, where slower ripening preserves the acidity that keeps the appellation's wines from feeling heavy despite their concentration.

The DOC and DOCG labels that appear on these bottles: Valpolicella, Valpolicella Ripasso, Amarone della Valpolicella, and Recioto della Valpolicella are all grounded in this specific geography, mandating the Corvina-led blends that Camerani farms biodynamically across all three sites.

Soil And Site

The Mezzane di Sotto hills carry limestone and clay soils typical of the eastern Valpolicella valley system. At the lower elevations of the main estate, clay-limestone supports adequate drainage for Corvina and Corvinone while retaining enough moisture to sustain vines through the dry late summer period that precedes the Amarone harvest. At Podere Castagné, the higher altitude and thinner soils slow the vine cycle, extending the growing season and keeping acidity in the fruit. This elevation gap across the three properties gives Camerani a wider ripeness spectrum to work with at harvest, feeding each tier of the range with grapes harvested at different moments.

Story

When Marinella Camerani took over the family vineyard in the mid-1980s, Valpolicella's ambitions were largely cellar-facing. Amarone was moving toward a more modern, internationally oriented style: richer, more extracted, made with temperature-controlled fermenters designed to produce uniformity and power. Biodynamics was associated with a handful of European estates, most visibly with Nicolas Joly in the Loire Valley, who had converted his Savennières estate and was arguing loudly that soil biology was the foundation of wine quality.

Camerani sought Joly out and studied his approach. She came back to Valpolicella and converted the entire estate. The conversion was not a short project. It required replacing conventional vineyard inputs with biodynamic preparations, rethinking every farming calendar decision, and accepting yields and irregularities that conventional viticulture controlled out of the system. The result, accumulated over four decades, is the only dual-certified organic and biodynamic estate in the Veneto.

The DOC rules did not change. The grapes remained Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella. The appassimento method that produces Amarone remained in the cellar. What changed was the health and character of the fruit arriving at harvest, and in Camerani's view, everything that matters in the wine follows from that starting point.

Vineyards And Cellar

All fruit across the three properties is hand-harvested. For the fresh Valpolicella tier, grapes go directly to fermentation, preserving the light, cherry-fresh character that the grape blend produces at its most natural. For the Ripasso, the base wine undergoes a second fermentation on the pressed skins left over from Amarone or Recioto production. This refermentation adds weight, dark fruit concentration, and tannin to the wine without the full drying cycle that defines Amarone.

Amarone requires appassimento: after harvest, selected grape clusters are laid on bamboo racks and dried for approximately 90 to 120 days. The grapes lose a significant portion of their water weight, concentrating sugars, phenolics, and flavour compounds before pressing and fermentation begin. The process demands careful air circulation and temperature management to prevent mould and to achieve even drying across the clusters. The resulting wine ferments slowly under the weight of its own sugar concentration, finishing dry at high alcohol.

Biodynamic certification shapes every stage before the fruit reaches the cellar: the timing of vineyard work follows the biodynamic calendar, and no synthetic inputs are used in the soil or on the vines.

Wines

The range moves in a logical sequence from freshness to concentration.

Valpolicella DOC is the lightest wine, fermented from whole fresh Corvina-led grapes. It carries cherry fruit, light body, and moderate tannin. Drinkable young, it captures the grape blend at its most accessible and most aromatic. This is a wine for immediate pleasure, not long ageing.

Valpolicella Ripasso DOC adds a second fermentation on Amarone or Recioto skins. The additional skin contact deepens the colour, lifts tannin, and adds dried fruit and chocolate notes to the cherry base. The result sits between the freshness of the Valpolicella and the full weight of Amarone.

Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG is the estate's most serious red. After 90 to 120 days of appassimento, the dried grapes ferment out to a full-bodied, dry wine with concentrated dried cherry, dark chocolate, tobacco leaf, and warming spice. High alcohol is inherent to the method. The tannin is ripe and dense, and good Amarone carries both the fruit weight and enough acidity to age for a decade or more.

Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG uses the same appassimento process but fermentation is stopped before the sugar fully converts, leaving sweetness alongside the concentrated fruit. It is the dessert wine of the range.

Soave DOC brings Garganega into the portfolio. White, floral, lightly mineral, and lower in alcohol than the red wines, it offers a different dimension from the same biodynamic farming philosophy.

In The Glass

The Valpolicella opens with fresh sour cherry and a faint violet note, light on the palate, with bright acidity carrying through to a clean, short finish. The tannin is fine and soft. It drinks coolly and easily.

The Ripasso shows more depth on the nose: dried cherry, dried plum, a hint of cocoa. In the mouth, the texture is fuller, the tannin more present, and the finish longer and drier than the fresh Valpolicella. The acidity from biodynamic farming keeps the mid-palate from feeling heavy.

The Amarone fills the glass with dried fruit, leather, tobacco, and dark chocolate. On the palate, it is dense and layered, with a full mid-palate, chewy but ripe tannin, and a warm, long finish that carries dried cherry and spice. Despite the weight, the wine holds an acid thread that lifts and separates the flavours rather than letting them merge into a single mass of richness.

The Soave is lighter, with white blossom, almond, and gentle citrus, finishing cleanly with a soft mineral note.

A Bottle To Understand It

Valpolicella Ripasso is the right first bottle from Corte Sant'Alda. Amarone is the estate's defining wine, but it is also the most demanding: high alcohol, dense fruit, and a weight that calls for food and time. The Ripasso delivers the same Corvina-led blend and the same biodynamic fruit quality at a register that is immediately approachable. It opens with dried cherry and cocoa, moves into a mid-palate of genuine density, and finishes with firm but manageable tannin and enough acidity to keep the wine balanced. It shows what the biodynamic farming produces: fruit that is concentrated and clean rather than extracted and heavy. Start here, then move to Amarone when the wines feel familiar.

Anecdote

In the mid-1980s, Marinella Camerani took over her family's Valpolicella vineyard above Mezzane di Sotto and almost immediately looked outside the region for direction. The Valpolicella model at the time was cellar-centred: modern fermenters, controlled temperatures, and Amarone built for international wine lists. Camerani travelled to the Loire Valley to study with Nicolas Joly, the Savennières producer who had converted his own estate to biodynamic principles and was making a public argument that soil and vine health were the only things in wine that a producer could actually control. She came back, converted the whole estate, and kept converting for years. No other Veneto producer followed her all the way to dual certification in both organic and biodynamic viticulture. When Gambero Rosso named her Winemaker of the Year for the 2024 guide, the citation noted what Corte Sant'Alda had been for forty years: a Valpolicella estate doing something no one else in the region had attempted or replicated.

Final Word

Corte Sant'Alda is the only estate in the Veneto carrying both organic and biodynamic certification. Marinella Camerani built that position over four decades, farming Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella across three hill properties from 350 to 600 metres and running the full range from fresh Valpolicella through Ripasso to Amarone and Recioto. Gambero Rosso named her Winemaker of the Year for 2024, a recognition grounded in longevity and method rather than in any single vintage. The wines are classical Valpolicella made from fruit that arrives at the cellar in better condition than most of the region achieves.

Sources

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