When he founded his winery in 1898, Pietro Sartori, according to tradition, did so only because - disappointed by his suppliers - he wanted to be served only the wines he had selected in his small hotel. Just a few years later he moved into the historic Villa Maria in the heart of Valpolicella on the outskirts of Negrar, just outside Verona. From then on the Casa Vinicola Sartori winery grew steadily. Today, Luca, Andrea and Paolo Sartori, the fourth generation of the family, are in charge of the wine house, which has recently been flushed up to the top by a new push in quality. The annual production figures have now reached a respectable level without the current estate managers having jeopardised their close ties to the production area and its traditions. In the cellars of Villa Maria, great Veronese wines from Valpolicella to Recioto to Amarone, for which Sartori has acquired world fame, mature.

The very passionate and committed Sartori trio has not only significantly improved quality, but has also renewed and considerably expanded the company's premises. Nevertheless, the high production figures of around 16 million bottles per year and such a broad and reliable range would not have been possible without the close cooperation with tried and tested local winegrowers. An important milestone in the company's history is the cooperation between Sartori and Cantina di Colognola. It should also not go unmentioned that the upswing of the mother house initially came with the success of the Saltari family farm.

Sartori's attention is not only focused on modern methods of winemaking, but also on the most advanced approaches to winemaking and bottling. In the historic wine cellars, careful and precise work under the guidance of the renowned oenologist Franco Bernabei produces wines that combine sweetness with a powerful character at a very good price-performance ratio. Sartori has said goodbye to small French barriques, as they give the graceful drops a too strong "wooden stamps" and the way they'd forced it on me.

In other Italian regions, such as Friuli or Abruzzo, the Sartori family also combines environmentally friendly cultivation methods and production processes with state-of-the-art technology. The importance of the wine house can also be seen in the fact that Andrea Sartori was elected president of Italy's most important wine export consortium, Italia del Vino, in 2015. SUPERIORE.DE