Vini Sassara

Altitude | 200 metres

Soil | Rocky, alluvial based on chalk, morainic origin

Approach | Natural, unfiltered, wild yeast, no added sulphites

Situated just outside Verona, in the Morainic Hills near Lake Garda, Vini Sassara is a new project from longtime natural winemakers Alessia and Stefano Bertaiola. With a background in agricultural research and development, Alessia joined forces with third-generation winemaker Stefano more than a decade ago and together they farm a 10-hectare site that has been in Stefano’s family for 50 years. This is Bardolino country, a DOC in the Veneto region most famous for its Valpolicella-style light reds and rosé wines. But being natural winemakers, Alessia and Stefano are less concerned with what conventional winemakers are doing in the area and instead have set out to show what the indigenous grapes and Bardolino terroir are capable of when allowed to express themselves naturally.

Esotico 2020 was the first release from Vini Sassara, and what a debut wine it is. Made from no less than 10 different grape varieties - a mix of 30% red grapes (Corvina, Rossanella, Rondinella, Molinara) and 70% white grapes (Fernanda, Moscato, Trebbianello, Trebbiano, Garganega, Tocai), co-fermented, with skins for 10 days, this is a wine that is almost impossible to define. Is it red? Is it orange? Who cares, it’s absolutely delicious – light, bright, elegant, with notes of pomegranate, grapefruit, tangerine and wet stone. Since Esotico was released, we have welcomed many more new wines from Sassara: a dry and mineral white; a crisp and refreshing rosato; a super cloudy sparkling white; a delightfully fruity light red made in the traditional ripasso style; and an impressively elegant Garganega orange wine which had two months on skins and was aged in amphorae.