Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine

The story

A Hundredth Year Partnership

In July 2025, Pasqua announced that it would become the exclusive global distributor for selected wines from Charles Smith's House of Smith portfolio, with the first shipments scheduled to move in September of that year. September 2025 was also the month that marked one hundred years since the winery opened in Verona. Smith makes his wines in Washington State, far from the Valpolicella ridge where Pasqua farms its own grapes, and the categories do not overlap. What the deal shared with the winery's founding moment was ambition of scale: in 1925 the Pasqua family began selling wine from Verona; in 2025, in the centenary year, they agreed to carry another producer's labels to the world. It was the first time the family had taken on distribution of an outside producer at commercial scale, and the timing was not accidental.

From the atlas

Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine

At A Glance

The Producer

Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine has been making wine in Verona since 1925. The Pasqua family owns and leads the house, with Riccardo Pasqua as chief executive. A century in, the operation reaches across the Valpolicella appellation system in eastern Veneto, with its own vineyard work concentrated on three plots sharing a single ridge in the eastern part of the zone.

Two wines define what Pasqua chooses to do differently. Hey French is a multi-vintage white assembled from six separate harvests, a construction method almost unheard of for still wine. Mai Dire Mai is the house's Amarone, aged for two years entirely in new French oak. Neither bottle is the obvious move for a producer of this age and scale, and together they reveal a winery more interested in specificity than in regional convention.

Place

Valpolicella is an appellation in the western half of Verona's wine country, running from the Adige valley into the hills to the north and northeast of the city. It produces red wines from Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella, with still Valpolicella at one end of the range and Amarone, made from dried grapes, at the other. The drying process concentrates sugar, flavour, and tannin, producing wines that age for years and fill the mouth with dried fruit, leather, and dark spice.

Eastern Valpolicella sits closer to Verona than the classic zone to the west, and Pasqua's three vineyard projects occupy a single ridge there. The position gives a shared geological and climatic baseline across the plots, which matters when the winery is trying to build wines with consistent character across multiple growing seasons.

Soil And Site

The three Pasqua vineyard plots sit along one ridge in eastern Valpolicella. The Mizzole vineyard is the most documented of the three. Soils, elevations, vine ages, and yields across the sites are not fully established in available sources. What is established is that Mizzole has been farmed organically for over a decade, predating the house's broader certifications and representing a long-running commitment to working without synthetic inputs on at least part of the estate.

Story

Pasqua opened in 1925, and for most of its first century it built the kind of business that family wineries in Verona typically built: broad distribution, multiple appellations, a range that covered Soave, Valpolicella, and Amarone alongside international varieties. The house grew steadily without becoming a prestige producer in the narrow sense.

The two wines that now define the house came from a different set of decisions. Hey French asks what happens if a winemaker selects the best expression of a grape blend across six separate vintages and builds a single wine from all of them. The Mizzole organic commitment, begun around 2012, preceded the ISO and BRC certification regime that followed. Mai Dire Mai pushed the Amarone category toward a different oak philosophy, 24 months entirely in new wood rather than the old large-format casks more commonly used in the zone.

In 2025, the centenary year, Pasqua took on exclusive global distribution of selected wines from Charles Smith's House of Smith in Washington State. The partnership moved the company beyond its own production for the first time at commercial scale.

Vineyards And Cellar

The Mizzole vineyard has been farmed organically for over ten years. Organic cultivation at this scale means no synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilisers in the vine rows, which tends to produce grapes with cleaner aromatic expression and more defined fruit character.

Hey French requires an unusual cellar sequence. Each of the six component vintages spends three to four months on its lees before blending, a step that builds texture and weight. The assembled wine then ages six to eight months in first-use barriques and tonneaux with medium or light toast. First-use wood at this level of toast adds gentle spice and a light vanilla thread without overwhelming the Garganega and Sauvignon Blanc fruit.

Mai Dire Mai Amarone follows the drying and fermentation stages common to the appellation, then ages for 24 months in new French oak: 70 percent in 225-litre barrels and 30 percent in 500-litre barrels. The smaller barrels exchange more rapidly with the wine, deepening the oak imprint. Twenty-four months in fully new wood is a deliberate choice to build an Amarone with a particular depth of cedar and dark spice, trading the oxidative softness of old large casks for a firmer, more linear result.

Wines

Hey French is a multi-vintage white wine blending six harvests: 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2024. The grape varieties are Garganega and Sauvignon Blanc. Garganega, the white grape at the centre of the Soave appellation east of Verona, brings almond character and a soft, slightly waxy mid-palate. Sauvignon Blanc adds a herbaceous, green-edged top note. Volcanic minerality threads through both, giving the wine a dry, almost saline length. The multi-vintage construction means no single growing season dominates the profile: the winery is selecting for expressiveness and building toward a consistent aromatic house character rather than vintage variation.

Mai Dire Mai is Pasqua's Amarone della Valpolicella, made from dried Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella grapes. The 2013 vintage is dark and dense, with underbrush, morello cherry, cedar, cocoa, and leather on the nose. The palate shows notable acidity for such a concentrated wine, alongside firm but integrated tannin and a finish that does not shorten quickly. Two years in new French oak gives it a spice framework and cedar depth that older-cask Amarone does not carry.

In The Glass

Hey French opens with exotic fruit: mango and lychee at the front, with chamomile and sage underneath. On the palate, rose petal freshness comes first, then the almond softness of Garganega fills the mid-palate and the Sauvignon Blanc's herbaceous edge tightens the back. The lees ageing gives body without heaviness, and the first-use oak adds a faint spice note rather than obvious wood. Volcanic minerality carries through to the finish, making the wine feel dry and precise even at its ripest.

Mai Dire Mai is bigger and slower. Underbrush and dried cherry rise from the glass, with cedar and cocoa coming forward as the wine opens. In the mouth, the concentration from the drying process is immediately apparent, but the acidity keeps it from feeling heavy. The tannin is firm and present through the mid-palate, then softens toward a long finish that holds its cedar and leather notes well past the swallow.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Hey French. It is made from Garganega and Sauvignon Blanc, blended across six harvests from 2015 to 2024, with lees ageing and a period in first-use French oak. The nose is aromatic and clear: exotic fruit, chamomile, sage, a light herbaceous thread. The palate is fresh and dry, with the almond softness of Garganega filling the middle and a saline mineral finish. It is not a conventional Veneto white, which is part of the point: the multi-vintage construction is Pasqua's own idea, and the wine tastes like it came from a deliberate decision about what white wine from this part of Italy can do.

Anecdote

In July 2025, Pasqua announced that it would become the exclusive global distributor for selected wines from Charles Smith's House of Smith portfolio. Distribution was set to begin in September, which meant the first shipments would move in the same month that marked one hundred years since the winery opened. Smith makes his wines in Washington State, well beyond the Valpolicella ridge where Pasqua farms its own grapes, and the categories do not overlap. What the deal shared with the winery's founding moment was scale: in 1925 the Pasqua family began selling wine from Verona; in 2025, in the centenary year, they agreed to carry someone else's wines to the world. The partnership was the first time the family had taken on distribution of another producer's labels at commercial scale.

Final Word

Pasqua is a Veronese house with a century of production behind it and two genuinely unusual wines at its centre. Hey French answers a question most Italian producers do not ask, and Mai Dire Mai is an Amarone with a clear oak philosophy rather than a generic one. The eastern Valpolicella vineyard work, led by the long-running organic management at Mizzole, gives the fruit a cleaner baseline. For a house this size, the specificity of the choices is the thing worth noticing.

Sources

• https://pasqua.it/roots/
• https://pasqua.it/vision/
• https://pasqua.it/journal/the-art-of-pasqua-wines-in-interpreting-valpolicella-the-sustainable-the-organic-and-the-natural/
• https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2025/07/pasqua-wines-partners-with-charles-smith-for-global-distribution-push/
• https://pasqua.it/wines/hey-french/
• https://pasqua.it/wines/mai-dire-mai-amarone/