STEFANO ACCORDINI

The estate winery has deep country roots: their founders have been share-croppers, then landowners and finally wine-makers. The company is led by Stefano, helped by his wife Giuseppina and his two sons, Tiziano and Daniele. Stefano has always been involved in wine-making, Tiziano directs the marketing and manages the winery, while Daniele is in charge of the vineyards. Even their wives, Raffaella and Eleonora give their contribution to the company working in the administration and in the production together with their children Giacomo, Paolo and Marco. The family estate extends over 4 hectares located in Negrar, the heart of Valpolicella, in a place called Bessole.

These vineyards enjoy a south-eastern exposure and excellent soil. Three different varieties of grapes, Corvina, Rondinella and Corvinone, grafted by Stefano and taken from grapes of high quality, are grown on the estate. A new vineyard, of about 14 acres, located in the hills of Fumane, was recently purchased and completely replanted.. The Winery is located in the heart of classic Valpolicella, in Pedemonte, S.Pietro Incariano. It is not a large winery, however it is equipped with most advanced wine making technology. Great attention is devoted to the drying of the grapes, a technique which enables the production of the most important wines of the Accordini family such as Amarone, Fornetto, Fornetto Acinato, Recioto Acinato, the white "Bricco delle Bessole" and the innovative IGT Passo. Even the traditional techniques, such as Ripasso, are usually employed to produce a wine of high level, the Valpolicella Classico Superiore. Special care is given to the bottle aging as this process is considered of paramount importance to guarantee the right balance in the wine evolution.

The Romans applied the term Rhetic to the wine coming from the area around and to the south of Lake Garda but the beverage highly praised by Pliny the Elder, Virgil, Martial and Suetonius was quite clearly the wine known today as Valpolicella. That wine, named for the valley situated to the north of Verona, which is today the center of its production, is different from those made in other areas strongly influenced by the mild climate produced by the water of Lake Garda in that it has a bigger body and a more intense color. A great part of Valpolicella's worldwide reputation, however, must be attributed to two versions of the wine, the Recioto and Recioto Amarone. In making them, grape clusters are carefully selected and then dried, after the harvest, for a period varying between 30 and 90 days. Pressing and fermentation occur at times, under environmental conditions and according to methods that are different from those of the normal Valpolicella. In addition, the wines' degree of sweetness can be altered by moving the first racking forward or back in time. The Amarone is differentiated from the Recioto by the fact that all of its sugars are transformed into alcohol. That factor, along with the concentration of the must through the drying of the grapes and aging in oak casks for at least one year, is responsible for the development of exclusive characteristics that set this wine apart from all others.