Italy · Valpolicella & Bardolino (Verona hills)

Giuseppe Quintarelli

Family estate in Cerè di Negrar farming 12 hectares at 500 metres in the Negrar Valley. Grapes dried for close to five months before slow cold fermentation and seven years in large Slavonian oak.

The producer

Giuseppe Quintarelli ran this small estate in the hamlet of Cerè di Negrar, in the Valpolicella Classica zone east of Verona, from the early 1950s until his death in January 2012. He spent six decades making Amarone and Valpolicella by the same patient methods: long appassimento drying of the grapes, cold fermentation lasting up to seven weeks, and extended ageing in large Slavonian oak barrels. He never adjusted his approach to follow the market, and when a harvest fell short he declined to make Amarone at all, releasing the fruit instead as Rosso del Bepi, a separate wine named after himself using the Veneto contraction of Giuseppe.

The estate farms 12 hectares on the calcareous eastern slopes of the Negrar Valley at roughly 500 metres, growing Corvina and Corvinone on the traditional pergola veronese trellis. Annual production runs to approximately 60,000 bottles across a range from dry white and light red up through Valpolicella Classico and into Recioto and Amarone. Fiorenza Grigoli, her husband Giampaolo, and their sons Francesco and Lorenzo now manage the estate and continue the same approach.

Known for

Amarone della Valpolicella Classico; Rosso del Bepi

Notable facts

The story

Rosso del Bepi

Every few years, Giuseppe Quintarelli looked at his harvest and decided it was not good enough for Amarone. He did not lower his standards and label the wine Amarone anyway. He made a different wine, named it Rosso del Bepi, Bepi being what people in the Veneto call a Giuseppe, and priced it accordingly. This was not a marketing exercise. It was a practical accounting of what the year produced. The fruit that would have gone into a weaker Amarone went instead into a wine that made no claims beyond what the vintage could support. The name stuck because Giuseppe kept making the same call year after year, and the wine accumulated its own following. Bepi became as much a part of the estate as the Amarone itself, a standing record of which years Giuseppe judged worthy of his flagship and which he did not.

From the atlas

Giuseppe Quintarelli

At A Glance

The Producer

Giuseppe Quintarelli ran 12 hectares in the hamlet of Cerè di Negrar from the early 1950s until his death in January 2012, and he never once adjusted his methods to suit fashion. Sixty years of making Amarone and Valpolicella by the same slow, patient approach gave the estate a reputation built entirely on what it does in the cellar, not on classification or prestige designation.

Silvio Quintarelli founded the domaine in 1924 after sharecropping in the area, and when his son Giuseppe took over, the estate gained its lasting character: long drying of the grapes, cold and deliberate fermentation, extended ageing in large Slavonian oak barrels. Those choices are still made today by Fiorenza Grigoli, her husband Giampaolo, and their sons Francesco and Lorenzo.

Place

Cerè di Negrar sits on the eastern slopes of the Negrar Valley, one of the five valleys that make up the Valpolicella Classica zone west of Verona. The Classica designation matters because it refers to the historical production heartland of Valpolicella, where the vineyards climb higher and the calcareous soils hold less moisture than the expanded DOC zone on the plains below.

At 500 metres, the Quintarelli parcels sit near the upper limit of Valpolicella Classica viticulture. The elevation slows ripening through summer and pulls night temperatures down sharply in autumn, which prolongs the growing season and preserves natural acidity in the grapes. That acidity is what allows Amarone, a wine fermented from concentrated dried fruit at 15 percent alcohol or above, to finish without heaviness and to hold for three decades in bottle.

Soil And Site

The Negrar Valley soils are calcareous, with limestone-rich subsoil beneath clay and mineral topsoil on the valley's eastern slopes. Calcareous soils drain well and limit vine vigour, concentrating fruit flavour without irrigation. On the Quintarelli parcels, Corvina and Corvinone are trained on the pergola veronese trellis, a wide, horizontal canopy system traditional to the Valpolicella hills that shades the fruit and manages the intense summer heat at this altitude. International varieties on the estate are trained on guyot, which suits their different growth patterns.

Story

When Giuseppe took over from Silvio in the early 1950s, the Valpolicella zone was in the early stages of a commercial transformation. Larger producers were moving toward faster production and wider distribution. Giuseppe moved in the opposite direction. He made Amarone from fully dried grapes, fermented it slowly at low temperatures, and aged it for years in large barrels without adjusting oak influence or reducing ageing time to accelerate release.

That commitment cost the estate speed and volume. Sixty thousand bottles a year from 12 hectares, with Amarone aged around seven years before release, means years of capital tied up in barrel. Giuseppe accepted this arithmetic for six decades. When a vintage produced grapes he judged insufficient for Amarone, he did not make Amarone. He made Rosso del Bepi instead, a different wine at a different price point, named after himself using the Veneto contraction of Giuseppe.

Giuseppe died in January 2012. The family has not altered the approach.

Vineyards And Cellar

Corvina and Corvinone, the two primary grapes of Valpolicella, go to the drying chambers after harvest. The appassimento process runs for close to five months in controlled conditions, reducing each grape to roughly half its original weight as water evaporates and sugars concentrate. By the time fermentation begins, the must is dense, dark, and loaded with potential alcohol.

Fermentation runs dry and cold, lasting up to seven weeks. The low temperatures slow yeast activity, drawing out the process and preserving aromatic complexity that a warmer, faster fermentation would drive off. The resulting wine reaches 15 percent alcohol or above and carries the concentrated fruit character of the dried grapes alongside the freshness that the long, cold conversion of sugar to alcohol preserves.

Ageing takes place in large Slavonian oak barrels. The size of the vessels matters: large casks offer far less wood surface relative to wine volume than smaller barrels, so the oak influence is gentle and slow. The wine absorbs some oak tannin and oxygen over years of contact, but the character that emerges is mellower and more supple than wines aged in smaller cooperage. Standard Amarone spends around seven years in these barrels before bottling. The Riserva spends approximately ten.

Wines

The range runs from Bianco Secco, a dry white, and Primofiore, a light red for early drinking, up through Valpolicella Classico and into the appassimento wines. Recioto della Valpolicella, the sweet red made from dried grapes and the historical ancestor of Amarone, also appears in the range. These earlier wines give access to the estate's fruit character without the weight and ageing requirement of the flagship.

Rosso del Bepi occupies a specific position in the range. It is made from the same Corvina and Corvinone grapes as Amarone, in vintages when the family judges the harvest unsuitable for the longer commitment of Amarone production. The wine carries Giuseppe's nickname as its name and functions as the estate's honest accounting of what a given year produced.

Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is the central wine. It undergoes appassimento for close to five months, dry low temperature fermentation lasting up to seven weeks, and around seven years of ageing in Slavonian oak. The Riserva extends the oak ageing to approximately ten years and requires proportionally longer in bottle before it opens.

In The Glass

Amarone from Quintarelli rises from the glass with dried cherry, tobacco, and dark spice, the aroma signature of Corvina and Corvinone put through five months of drying and seven weeks of cold fermentation. The concentration is immediate and dense, without the jammy quality that warmer fermentation or smaller oak produces.

In the mouth, the weight is considerable but not flat. The calcareous soils and the long cold fermentation preserve an acid line that lifts the fruit and prevents the dried-grape concentration from sitting heavily. Tannin is firm and fine-grained, built over years in large Slavonian oak, where the wine becomes mellower and more supple. Alcohol runs to 15 percent or above but reads as warmth rather than heat because the sugar conversion was complete and the acidity is present.

The finish is long and dry, with the slight bitterness characteristic of Corvina. Bottles released today are often still closed and require years of cellaring to show their full complexity. Older vintages open into dried fruit, leather, earth and cedar with the acidity still intact and the tannin resolved to a smooth, persistent texture.

A Bottle To Understand It

Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is the bottle to start with. It carries the complete arc of the estate's approach: grapes from the 500-metre Negrar Valley parcels, dried for close to five months, fermented slowly at low temperatures, and aged for around seven years in large Slavonian oak before release. The wine is dense and dry, with dried cherry and spice on the nose, firm tannin, a lifted acid line from the calcareous soils, and a finish that runs long and slightly bitter in the Corvina manner. It will develop over twenty to thirty years in a good cellar, though older releases from reliable merchants are often available and show what the method produces with age.

Anecdote

Every few years, Giuseppe Quintarelli looked at his harvest and decided it was not good enough for Amarone. He did not lower his standards and label the wine Amarone anyway. He made a different wine, named it Rosso del Bepi, Bepi being what people in the Veneto call a Giuseppe, and priced it accordingly. This was not a marketing exercise. It was a practical accounting of what the year produced. The fruit that would have been pressed into a weaker Amarone went instead into a wine that made no claims beyond what the vintage could support. The name stuck because Giuseppe kept making the same call year after year, and the wine accumulated its own following. Bepi became as much a part of the estate as the Amarone itself, a standing record of which years Giuseppe judged worthy of his flagship and which he did not.

Final Word

Giuseppe Quintarelli spent sixty years making Amarone by methods he inherited, refined, and refused to abandon. The estate in Cerè di Negrar produces around 60,000 bottles a year, ages its flagship for seven years in barrel before release, and names its second wine after the man who set the standard. That combination of small scale, long time horizons, and honest vintage accounting is rare in any wine region. The family continues it today.

Sources

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