Cantina di Venosa is a cooperative winery in the volcanic foothills of Mount Vulture, in the Basilicata town of Venosa. Founded in 1957 by 27 grower-members, today it pools fruit from more than 350 viticoltori across roughly 800 hectares and stands as one of southern Italy's leading specialists in Aglianico del Vulture DOC. The flagship Carato Venusio Aglianico del Vulture Superiore DOCG, fermented from old-vine Aglianico at around 400 metres above sea level, has earned a Decanter World Wine Awards gold and four corkscrews in the AIS Vitae guide. The cellar holds Equalitas sustainability certification and runs satellite-mapped precision viticulture across its members' vineyards.
Basilicata
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The Via Appia cooperative cellar receives visitors for guided tastings spanning the Vulture range, from Verbo Aglianico through to the Carato Venusio Superiore DOCG. There is no online booking page; reach the office by email or phone in advance to confirm availability and group size.
EnquireThe Via Appia cooperative cellar receives visitors for guided tastings spanning the Vulture range, from Verbo Aglianico through to the Carato Venusio Superiore DOCG. There is no online booking page; reach the office by email or phone in advance to confirm availability and group size.
EnquireCantina di Venosa is a cooperative cellar founded in 1957 by 27 grower-members at the foot of Mount Vulture, the extinct volcano whose ash and basalt soils have shaped Basilicata's red-wine identity for centuries. Nearly seventy years on, the same model still drives the project: more than 350 viticoltori contribute fruit from roughly 800 hectares, the bulk of it concentrated around the comune of Venosa, which produces more Aglianico than anywhere else in the Vulture appellation. The cellar's identity is built around Aglianico del Vulture, the late-ripening red grape whose name traces back to the Greek 'Hellenico' and whose modern reputation rests on volcanic minerality, ripe black fruit, and tannins that benefit from slow oak ageing. Production passes through stainless-steel fermentation before transfer to French and Slavonian barrels, with the fullest, longest-aged lots bottled as Carato Venusio, the cellar's flagship Aglianico del Vulture Superiore DOCG. Sourced from 15 to 30 year old vines at around 400 metres on Vulture's slopes, it has taken Decanter World Wine Awards gold and a four-corkscrew rating in the AIS Vitae guide. Around the flagship sits a fuller catalogue that maps every facet of Venosa's terroir: Verbo and Gesualdo da Venosa explore Aglianico del Vulture DOP at different ageing tiers; Terre di Orazio and the D'Avalos label put Vulture's volcanic whites and roses on the table; the Verbo Bianco Malvasia and Terre di Orazio Dry Muscat speak for the area's aromatic white tradition. Together they read less like a product line than a regional cross-section, the kind only a cooperative with members across the appellation can credibly assemble. Sustainability sits alongside scale rather than behind it. The cellar received Equalitas certification in 2023 and has held ISO 22005:2008 traceability plus BRCG and IFS food-safety standards for years; its first formal Sustainability Report was published in December 2022, covering the 2021/2022 financial year. In the vineyards, Sentinel-2 satellite mapping tied to Oenoview software has been monitoring vine health since 2018, a project that earned a Coldiretti Oscar Green award in 2022, and Trapview pheromone stations track Lobesia botrana pressure across the 700 hectares it watches in real time. A 200 kW rooftop photovoltaic array and 70 percent recycled glass round out the operational programme. Venosa itself, birthplace of the Roman poet Horace and of the late-renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, is one of Basilicata's most underrated cultural stops. The cellar sits a short walk from the historic centre on the old Via Appia and is listed on Tripadvisor among the town's top-ranked attractions. There is no online booking, but visits and tastings are arranged directly through the winery's contact channels, and the cooperative's scale means a single visit can fairly cover Vulture's full Aglianico spectrum without chasing a string of small estates across the hills.
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Plate I · BASILICATA
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Walk-ins welcome 
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