Cheers,
Will be in Italy next month, based in Verona. Looking for a couple of wineries to visit in a day. Ideally, one winery before lunch, a nice sit down lunch, one winery after lunch. Looking for a variety of wines of good+ quality. Big names are not important. Any recomendations for tastings/lunch?
Grazie!
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I recommend Buglioni, about 20 minutes outside of Verona. Nice wines, including their Amarone and Ripasso. You’ll need to arrange for the visit in advance. They have a great restaurant too, down the road from the winery - not sure, though if it’s open for lunch.
Also recommend Bertani. Really cool tasting room and winery. Lots of older Amarone from their library selections. It’s about an hour or so outside of Verona.
Cheers!
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In Verona itself, Bottega del Vino https://bottegavini.it/ (ugh! what a horrible glossy website) is handily hidden away, despite being central. Whilst the wine side didn’t impress as much as it had been talked up beforehand, the food was standard dishes, done extremely well.
Overall the city is somewhat over-touristed, so be prepared to look around the fringes for value / quality / authenticity.
I’ll put in a word for Soave, as it’s got a pleasing character to it, so would make for more of a day trip than a mere winery visit and lunch. Gini or Pieropan solid options. I also like Anselmi’s atypical wines, but was less impressed by their restaurant in Soave itself. Not awful, but just not impressive enough to recommend.
A friend spoke highly of visiting Seregho Alighieri (Masi) as a broader than just the wine experience. At the opposite end of the scale, both Roccolo Grassi (Mezzane di Sotto) and Marco Mosconi (Mormontea nr. Illasi) were low key settings, but the wines shone, especially the former’s valpolicella and the latter’s recioto di valpolicella.
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We visited Marion, a small family-run winery, because we had tasted their Cab Sauv and it was very good. They also make Amarone and Teroldego, etc. Also went to Quintarelli…fabulous tour and tasting. On the way back from Quintarelli, I punctured the sidewalls of two tires on my rental car. Made for an interesting day.
I stayed in Verona in 2019 on a trip with our wine tasting group. Verona is well placed for access to some great wine country, so you have plenty of choice. We visited Valpolicella, Prosecco, Lugarno & Teroldego.
I detailed the visit on my blog which names the wineries we visited and places we lunched on those days here Petes-Pix: Valpolicella (click Newer Post at bottom for next day)
I will second the Seregho Alighieri and Buglioni restaurant recs. I’ve done both and very much enjoyed them. You can taste the Buglioni wines at the restaurant as well (they were fine).
My real restaurant rec in the Valpo area is https://www.enotecadellavalpolicella.it/. It is fantastic.
+1 for Soave and especially these two. Also Suavia, one of the best Soave producers our there. Stunning wines.
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I highly recommend a day trip with Pagus Wine tours. They have excellent small tours of boutique and family run wineries.
This restaurant is a classic Verona restaurant with a vast wine list
Thanks all, appreciate the recommendations
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I can’t second the Pagus recommendation
Closing the loop on this for posterity and to give credit where credit is due:
Did a morning tasting at Tenuta Santa Maria. I was looking for the Bertani winery, which this turned out to be (historically at least. Apparantly they sold the name. Not sure I understand why). Beautiful Wife saw their website -the property is Gorgeous- and so we had to go there. Very good wines; we bought the Amarone Riserva and a bottle of really decent merlot. Paid for the upgraded tasting and that ended up including a Very aged chardonnay that neither of us liked, and the said merlot. We booked an English speaking tasting. There were 6 People in the group, 4 of which only spoke Italian. Bilingual guide spent twice as long speaking Italian as English, so there was that. Otherwise Very good.
Lunch at Enoteca Della Valpolicella, where we wisely did the tasting menu with their wine pairings. HOLY CR4P was this place fantastic, especially the food.THANK YOU THANK YOU Craig for that recommendation.
Afternoon tasting at Quintarelli. I know them, but don’t have a ton of experience so thought this would be a good try. I have to say, the wines really aren’t my style, which is just as well given the price point. We did buy a bottle of their Rosso del Bepi, which drinks more like a traditional Amarone, and a couple of over-priced whites.
Finally, we did try Antica Bottega del Vino in Verona. The wine list is unbelievably deep in the regional stuff–really very impressive. We didn’t have Ian’s luck re: the food, which we thought was OK. Great atmosphere.
Thanks again, All, for your help.
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I really liked their Bianco Secco and found the price was right… in 2015 (it was like 35 CAD back then).