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DolceVera is a small estate at Villa, a hamlet on the hills east of Negrar, in Valpolicella Classica, north of Verona. Marco Benedetti started it in 2013 and farms it with his father. They make about 20,000 bottles a year. All the vines sit at Villa, between 250 and 300 metres, most of them on the old high trellis of the valley. The six reds run from Valpolicella Classico to Amarone and a sweet Recioto. A two-hour tour and tasting of four wines is booked online, Monday to Saturday.
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Marco Benedetti trained in accounting and spent two years in an office. In the summer of 2011 he went to pick grapes at a winery near his home, and a month in the vines settled it. He founded DolceVera in 2013, at 25, on the land at Villa where he had grown up. He built his own cellar and made his first wine from part of the 2015 crop. Since 2016 the whole harvest has gone into DolceVera bottles, about 20,000 a year. His father, who passed on the love of the land, works alongside him.
The name is a thank-you. Dolce is for his father. Vera is a nun his father met in the year the estate began. A chance meeting grew into a close friendship, and she became an important figure for the whole family. They shared one idea: the land is a common home, to be looked after and worked with care. Every label carries six words in two groups of three: faith, passion, tradition, and earth, joy, sharing.
The vineyards cover about five hectares, the size of seven football pitches, all at Villa on the eastern side of Negrar. They are split into eight small plots with their own names, from Campo Novo to Molino and Paradiso. Most of the vines are trained on the Veronese pergola, the high trellis of the old Valpolicella. A smaller part grows on the lower guyot wire. The vines are 15 to 40 years old. The oldest plot, Molino, keeps a few vines of Oseleta and Negrara, two old local grapes. They grow beside the Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Molinara that make the wines. The plots sit between 250 and 300 metres, on soils that change from sand at Campo Novo to clay and silt at Molino. Nobody sprays weedkiller between the rows. For years the estate has fought the grape moth with mating disruption, a method that uses the insect's own scent. It treats the vines only when it has to.
Six reds come from these plots. Valpolicella Classico is the fresh one, made from the grapes not chosen for drying and aged six months in steel. The Classico Superiore spends two years in oak, the Ripasso Classico Superiore one. Ripasso gets its extra body by refermenting the young wine on the skins left over from the Amarone and Recioto. For the Amarone, the best bunches dry for about three months and lose 40 per cent of their weight before pressing: the appassimento of Valpolicella. The wine then ages three years in French and Slavonian oak, first in 750-litre casks and then in a large cask. The barrel cellar is a small one, built beside the main Villa vineyard. The Amarone Riserva is made only in the best years, from the oldest vines on the Molino plot. It ages five years in cask and at least two in bottle. Recioto is the sweet red: the same dried grapes, with the fermentation stopped so some sugar stays. There is also an extra virgin olive oil.
The cellar stands on a hill above the vines, with a covered terrace that looks down the valley to Negrar. Visitors get a two-hour tour, from the vineyard to the barrel cellar, then four reds with soppressa salami and Monte Veronese cheese: Classico, Classico Superiore, Ripasso and Amarone. Marco or his wife Clarissa leads it, in English or Italian. In spring and summer the tasting is on the terrace. In autumn and winter it moves indoors, to a long table under the beams. It runs Monday to Saturday from nine in the morning and is booked on Winedering at least a day ahead, for two people or more. Children come free, and there is free parking.
Plate I · VENETO
Wine area
Corvina country, four wines from the same hill.
Winery
Negrar di Valpolicella, Verona · Valpolicella
1 tasting, checked by our editors. From €35.
Tasting
Join owner Marco or his wife Clarissa for a tour of their vineyard and cellar, followed by a tasting of four Valpolicella reds
via Winedering
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DolceVera Winery's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Corvina and Corvinone.
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Veneto
Est. 2013 
6 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Booking required
