Italy · Valpolicella & Bardolino (Verona hills)

Società Agricola Spada

Four-generation family estate in San Pietro in Cariano, farming 10 hectares in the Valpolicella Classica and producing Ripasso, Amarone, and Recioto by an artisanal appassimento method.

The producer

Società Agricola Spada sits in San Pietro in Cariano, one of the five original hill communes of the Valpolicella Classica zone west of Verona. The family has made wine here since 1910, beginning with great-grandfather Giuseppe and passing through Attilio, Renzo, and Dino across four generations. Ten hectares of Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, Rondinella, and Molinara supply the whole range, and harvested grapes are dried in a cellar room where temperature, humidity, and ventilation are monitored across periods ranging from 15 days to six months.

The three wines are the same method at three different intensities. The Ripasso Valpolicella Classico Superiore blends 40% Corvinone, 40% Rondinella, 15% Corvina Veronese, and 5% Molinara, dried and then refermented over Amarone pomace before two years in 10-hectolitre French oak barrels. The Firmus Amarone carries the same varieties through a longer drying cycle to a drier, denser, more tannic finish. The Recioto della Valpolicella stops fermentation early, keeping residual sugar against the dark-fruit weight of the dried grapes. The Ripasso is where most people start: plum, black cherry, violet, and tobacco on the nose; warmth and rounded tannin in the mouth; vanilla and dark fruit carrying through to a persistent finish.

Known for

Artisanal appassimento: Ripasso, Amarone, and Recioto from a single climate-controlled drying room in Valpolicella Classica.

Notable facts

The story

El Cencio

Renzo Spada was known in the village not by his given name but as El Cencio, which translates loosely from the Veronese dialect as the rag. In the Valpolicella Classica of the 1950s, rural nicknames were common: surnames appeared on paperwork, but nicknames carried the oral record of who farmed which hill, who sold honest wine, and whose word held at the market. El Cencio stuck to Renzo the way those names do, from boyhood through to the generation that would put the Spada name formally onto labels and into wider commerce. The estate now registers and bottles as Società Agricola Spada. The nickname, and the village culture it belonged to, remains part of how the family traces its own history.

From the atlas

Società Agricola Spada

At A Glance

The Producer

Società Agricola Spada is a small family estate in San Pietro in Cariano, one of the original hill communes of the Valpolicella Classica zone west of Verona. The family has made wine here since 1910, beginning with great-grandfather Giuseppe and passing through Attilio, then Renzo, then Dino across four generations. Ten hectares of vineyards supply the whole range.

The estate is defined not by scale but by method. Spada dries harvested grapes before fermentation. At Spada, that drying happens in a purpose-built cellar room where temperature, humidity, and ventilation are monitored throughout. The duration varies from 15 days to six months depending on the grape, the technique, and the wine being made. Ripasso, the mid-range wine refermented over dried Amarone pomace, requires the shortest drying period. Amarone requires the longest. The same room, the same grapes, and a different calendar produce three entirely different bottles.

Place

Valpolicella Classica is the original, legally bounded zone within the broader Valpolicella denomination, covering the valleys and hillsides north-west of Verona. The Classica designation distinguishes the five historic communes, including San Pietro in Cariano, from the extended Valpolicella area that was added later. Wines made here carry that Classica distinction on the label.

The zone is built around four grape varieties: Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, Rondinella, and Molinara. None is particularly useful as a fresh single-varietal wine. Their value emerges from appassimento. Drying concentrates sugar, deepens colour, thickens tannin, and shifts the aroma from fresh cherry toward dried fruit, chocolate, and tobacco. The resulting wines are dense and warm, with alcohol levels that reflect months of moisture loss before fermentation even begins.

Soil And Site

San Pietro in Cariano sits at the mouth of the Valpolicella valleys, where hillside soils typically include limestone and clay over a calcareous subsoil. The Spada vineyards extend across approximately 10 hectares within this commune. No independent parcel-level assessments are available in the current dossier, so soil claims beyond the general zone character cannot be made.

Story

The Spada family chronology begins in 1910 with Giuseppe, who farmed and made wine in San Pietro in Cariano at a time when the Valpolicella zone was still largely a bulk-wine region supplying the broader Italian market. The estate passed through his son Attilio, then to Renzo, and then to Dino. Four generations of uninterrupted family farming across more than a century is not common even in a region that trades on tradition.

The Ripasso offers the clearest evidence of how the estate has formalised its methods over time. Spada bottled its first Ripasso vintage in 2003, making it a relatively recent addition to a range that had long prioritised Amarone. The decision to bottle the Ripasso separately, with a defined two-year oak regime and a specific varietal formula, converted an informal by-product technique into a labelled wine with its own production rules.

Vineyards And Cellar

Spada uses the four classic Valpolicella varieties across its range, harvesting by hand and moving the fruit directly into the drying room. The controlled environment, with monitored temperature, humidity, and ventilation, prevents uneven dehydration and reduces mould risk across the six months the longest drying cycle requires. Even dehydration matters: uneven drying produces irregular sugar concentration, which translates into inconsistent fermentation and variable alcohol in the finished wine.

After drying and fermentation, all wines go into French oak. The Ripasso spends two years in 10-hectolitre barrels, a format large enough to limit aggressive oak extraction while still allowing slow oxidative development. The producer says it matures its wines in high quality oak barriques. Amarone and Recioto spend longer in oak, though the cellar details for those wines are not confirmed in this packet.

Wines

The range is organised around one method applied at three different intensities. All three wines begin with the same grapes and the same drying room; the variables are duration, fermentation route, and finishing sweetness.

The Ripasso Valpolicella Classico Superiore DOC is the entry point. It blends 40% Corvinone, 40% Rondinella, 15% Corvina Veronese, and 5% Molinara, dried for the shorter end of the appassimento range and then refermented over the pomace left from Amarone pressing. That second fermentation adds body, colour, and dried-fruit complexity without the full weight of Amarone. Two years in 10-hectolitre French oak rounds the tannin and adds vanilla and light spice to a core of dark cherry and plum.

The Firmus Amarone della Valpolicella Classica DOCG draws on the same variety set but with a longer drying cycle, fermented dry to high alcohol, and aged longer in oak. It is the estate's most serious bottle: concentrated, tannic, and built for ageing. The Recioto della Valpolicella Classico DOCG completes the range as a sweet wine, stopped before full fermentation to retain natural grape sugar. The dried-grape base gives it density and dark fruit; the residual sweetness balances the tannin from Corvinone and Rondinella.

In The Glass

An independent assessment of the 2017 Ripasso found plum, blackberry, black cherry, violet, blueberry, chocolate, carob, tobacco, and vanilla lifting from the glass, followed by a tannic but alcohol-balanced attack in the mouth, good body and intensity through the mid-palate, and a persistent dark-fruit finish. The estate's own description adds warmth and smoothness on the palate, with rounded tannin.

Those notes trace directly to method. The dried-grape base accounts for the dark fruit density and the chocolate and tobacco tones; the two years in 10-hectolitre French oak add vanilla without pushing the wine toward sawdust or toasty oak. Corvinone and Rondinella contribute the firmest tannin in the blend, which the oak rounds but does not eliminate. The finish is long and fruit-forward, drying slightly at the end.

Amarone runs deeper: denser fruit, higher alcohol, and tannin that needs bottle time to settle. Recioto is sweet rather than heavy, with the same dark-fruit character but a softness on the palate from residual sugar cutting against the grip of the tannin.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Ripasso Valpolicella Classico Superiore. It is the wine where the estate's core method, appassimento at medium intensity followed by two years in 10-hectolitre French oak, is most legible in the glass. The blend of 40% Corvinone, 40% Rondinella, and 15% Corvina Veronese gives dark fruit, firm but rounded tannin, and enough body to hold the dried-grape concentration without tipping into the full weight of Amarone. Plum, black cherry, and violet on the nose; warmth and dark fruit through the palate; vanilla and tobacco on the finish. It explains what San Pietro in Cariano grapes do after four months of drying and two years in barrel, and it does so at a price point well below Amarone.

Anecdote

Renzo Spada was known in the village not by his given name but as "El Cencio," which translates loosely from the Veronese dialect as the rag. In the villages of the Valpolicella Classica in the 1950s, rural nicknames were how families were actually identified: surnames were for official paperwork, and nicknames carried the oral record of who farmed which hill, who sold honest wine, and whose word was worth something at the market. El Cencio stuck to Renzo the way these names do, from early boyhood through to the generation that would carry the Spada name formally onto labels and into wider commerce. The estate now bears the full formal name, Società Agricola Spada, in registration and on bottles. The nickname, and the village culture it belonged to, is part of what the family mentions when they trace their own history.

Final Word

Spada is a small estate doing one thing at three different depths. The drying room is the constant: everything from the lightest Ripasso to the densest Amarone begins in that controlled cellar space in San Pietro in Cariano, watched through months of slow dehydration before a single fermentation begins. The Ripasso is the accessible entry, the Amarone is the long-term bottle, and the Recioto is the sweet end of the same tradition. Four generations and one method.

Sources

Open Società Agricola Spada in the interactive map →