From the atlas
Corte Canella
At A Glance
Producer: Corte Canella Country: Italy Region: Veneto Village / Zone: Illasi, Val d'Illasi, Valpolicella Grape varieties: Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Croatina (Amarone); Garganega (Soave, appellation norms) Signature wine: Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG Founded: 2009
The Producer
In 2009, Francesco walked away from a previous career and, with his wife Adriana, founded Corte Canella at Via Canella 14 in Illasi, a village in the province of Verona. The name of the address became the name of the estate. Four years later, their daughter Gloria joined the project.
Francesco works the vineyards. Adriana runs the tasting room and wine shop. Gloria spans the cellar, the office, and the communications work that takes the estate outward. The division is neat and total: three people, three distinct jobs, one farm.
The farm is organised around a single idea. Every vineyard plot at Corte Canella is farmed as a potential source for Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, and the decision about which fruit actually earns that designation is made during each growing season, not in the planting plan. Only the best grapes from each harvest go to Amarone. The rest become the estate's entry wines.
Place
Illasi sits in the Val d'Illasi, a broad, eastward-running valley in the province of Verona. It falls within the wider Valpolicella production zone, specifically in the area known as Valpolicella Allargata, the extended zone that encompasses the valleys east of the historic Valpolicella Classica heartland.
Corte Canella's vineyards are on the hilly Cellore slopes above the valley floor, at around 200 metres above sea level. That elevation matters for Amarone: grapes destined for appassimento spend 90 to 100 days drying after harvest, and the cooler nights at altitude help preserve the acidity that keeps a wine of this weight from tipping into heaviness. The valley itself is described as wide and sunny, which pushes ripeness; the hillside position corrects for that warmth.
The Val d'Illasi is not a famous postal address in Valpolicella. The Classica zone carries most of the appellation's prestige. Working from the Illasi hills is a deliberate choice to produce Amarone-grade fruit in a less-noticed corner of the wider zone.
Soil And Site
The soils in the Cellore area are alluvial: stony, rocky, and free-draining. Alluvial deposits this far up a valley hillside tend to be well-sorted, with larger stones and gravel fractions that limit water retention and push vine roots deeper. Drainage keeps yields in check and concentrates sugars and flavour compounds in the grapes, both qualities useful in fruit bound for months of post-harvest drying.
No certified farming method has been confirmed for Corte Canella; organic or biodynamic claims should not be assumed.
Story
Francesco's founding decision in 2009 was not an inherited situation. He left something else to start a winery, which is a different premise from taking over a family estate or expanding into a second label. Corte Canella began with a clean break.
Gloria arrived in 2013, four years into the project. Her arrival brought the current family roles into place: Francesco in the vineyards, Adriana with visitors and sales, Gloria across cellar and communications. Each member of the family holds ground the others do not cover.
The farm's governing discipline is the whole-property Amarone standard. By holding every plot to Amarone potential, rather than designating some parcels for entry wine from the outset, Corte Canella builds quality pressure across the entire vineyard estate. A parcel that produces Amarone-grade fruit earns that designation. A parcel that falls short in a given year feeds the Valpolicella or Superiore instead. The standard is applied seasonally, not architecturally.
Vineyards And Cellar
All hand selection takes place in the vineyard. Only the best grapes from each plot are committed to further processing; the rest are diverted at that point.
For Amarone, selected grapes undergo appassimento: a partial dehydration lasting 90 to 100 days. During this time, the grapes lose moisture and concentrate their sugars, dried-fruit character, and phenolic compounds. Fermentation then runs under temperature control for 20 to 25 days, long enough for the elevated sugar load to convert without rushing the extraction.
After fermentation, the wine ages for 24 months in barrique, 90 percent of them new, followed by two further years in bottle before release. The estate's stated position on oak is that the wood acts as support rather than as a flavour source. Given the percentage of new barrique, this is a philosophy that depends on the concentration of dried-grape fruit being strong enough to absorb the oak input without being dominated by it.
The cellar uses soft pressing to protect grape character before fermentation, and temperature control throughout to manage extraction and aroma retention.
Wines
Corte Canella makes six wines. At the top of the range sits the Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, built from Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, and Croatina. This is a full-bodied, deeply coloured dry red with the concentrated dried-fruit character that comes from three months of appassimento before fermentation. The long barrique ageing adds body and a warm spiced undertone, while the producer's philosophy keeps the oak from overwhelming the fruit.
Below the Amarone sits the Valpolicella DOC Superiore, which also involves some drying of the grapes before vinification and receives barrel and bottle ageing. It is a step between the entry-level Valpolicella and the full Amarone: more body and complexity than the basic DOC, without the full intensity of the DOCG.
The Valpolicella DOC is the entry wine, a dry red that takes its fruit from plots not selected for Amarone in a given season. The Recioto della Valpolicella uses the same dried-grape method as Amarone but is made sweet, with fermentation stopped before all the sugar converts. The Soave is a white wine from the neighbouring appellation, likely Garganega-led per those appellation norms. A rosé completes the six-label range.
Across the range, the dried-grape technique in various degrees connects the Amarone, Superiore, and Recioto, while the Valpolicella, Soave, and rosé represent the fresh, unappassimento-treated side of the cellar.
In The Glass
The Amarone opens with the concentrated aromatics of dried fruit: black cherry, fig, and warm spice that come directly from the months of appassimento. In the mouth, the wine is full-bodied and warming, with the extract and depth that 90 to 100 days of drying and a long slow fermentation produce. The barrique ageing adds a layered texture and a note of vanilla and dried wood that runs beneath the fruit. The finish is long and firm, with tannins that the two years in bottle have begun to smooth but that still give the wine grip and ageing potential. The producer's intent is that fruit leads and oak supports; at full expression, the dried-cherry and spice character outlasts the wood on the palate.
The Valpolicella Superiore, with its partial drying and barrel time, sits in a lighter register than the Amarone: the fruit is riper and more concentrated than an entry-level Valpolicella, with some of the same spiced warmth, but the body is less dense and the finish shorter.
A Bottle To Understand It
Corte Canella Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG is the wine around which the entire farm is organised, and it is made from the estate's selected fruit. Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, and Croatina from the Cellore hillside vineyards, hand-selected, dried for 90 to 100 days, fermented slowly under temperature control, then aged for 24 months in barrique and two years in bottle. The wine is a deep, concentrated dry red with dried cherry, fig, warm spice, and a firm tannic backbone that needs time. Start here to understand what the Val d'Illasi hillside produces and what the Corte Canella cellar does with it.
Anecdote
When Corte Canella needed an emblem, the image that emerged was Ampelio: a figure of a winegrower walking through the vineyard, carrying grapes. Nothing unusual in that, except for the shadow. On the ground behind the figure, the shadow does not show a man with a basket. It shows a bottle. The image was chosen by people who had left other lives to start a winery from nothing in 2009, and it captures something specific about the founding idea: that the work in the vineyard and the object on the table are not separated by a long chain of commercial decisions but are the same thing, one casting the other. The figure with the grapes and the bottle in his shadow appear on every label Corte Canella produces.
Final Word
Corte Canella is a small family estate that organised its entire farm around a single ambition: Amarone-grade fruit from every plot, with the season deciding which grapes earn the designation. Francesco, Adriana, and Gloria each hold a distinct piece of that operation. The hillside parcels above Val d'Illasi, the 90-to-100-day appassimento, and the long barrel rest make the Amarone the estate's fullest argument. It is a wine built on deliberate concentration and patient ageing, from people who chose this work over whatever came before.
Sources
- https://www.cortecanella.it/en/chi-siamo/
- https://www.cortecanella.it/en/la-nostra-cantina/
- https://www.cortecanella.it/en/amarone-della-valpolicella-docg/
- https://www.cortecanella.it/en/valpolicella-doc-superiore/
- https://www.cortecanella.it/en/i-nostri-vini/