Ca' la Bionda

Marano di Valpolicella, Veneto

Ca' la Bionda was born in 1997 when Pietro Castellani took possession of, and rebuilt, the old winery that his grandfather had bought in 1902.  Pietro is a man of the land, and he immediately handed control of the cellar to his eldest son Alessandro, who works alongside his brother Nicola; a dogged individual with an insatiable thirst to understand and improve the land and health of the vines.  The cellar is encircled by their vineyards, on the road from Valgatara to Marano, one of the hilltop villages of Valpolicella, where they also bought a high altitude vineyard.  The soils are predominantly clay, mixed with a high percentage of limestone, gifting the wines true elegance and minerality.

Alessandro is passionate about crafting great wine and his nostalgic love of Amarone from a bygone age, has led inevitably down the path of early picking: the only way to guarantee nuanced, fresh, fine wines that happen to be called Amarone.