il Roccolo di Monticelli - Corvina Blend - Veneto, IT - 2021

Satellite's Hot Take

A holiday wine through and through. It's like a warm hug from an italian grandma. What's not to like?

Notes from the Winery/Importer

Our interpretation of the red grapes of Valpolicella, faithful to its most sincere characteristics. A wine in whose simplicity we rediscover authentic tastes, which know how to fascinate and enthuse. Red wine unfiltered Old and Young Vines the Tradition Fresh and Elegant

The vines grow on rocky terraces called “marogne”, typical of our area. The five different grapes that make up this wine are harvested all together, manually in crates with a careful selection of the bunches and then processed in the cellar with destemming and light crushing of the grapes. Fermentation occurs spontaneously, in steel tanks, in contact with the skins. Contact that then continues until the beginning of winter when the wine is racked without pressing the skins, so as to avoid the extraction of bitter and more tannic notes, and preserve its freshness and softness.
After six months of further refinement on its fine lees it is bottled without filtration or adulteration. For this reason the presence of sedimentation in the bottle is completely natural and an indicator of the genuineness of the product.
It is the red wine that best identifies the company, for which it was given the name of the place where the company and its vineyard are located. A wine in which we recognize ourselves and that we appreciate very much because it shows another Valpolicella, now unknown to most, intriguing with its light red color and exciting with its freshness and its spicy notes.

Grape variety: Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella Molinara and Oseleta
Year of planting: 2015
Soil: Limestone hill with portions of rock that emerge on the surface
Cultivation: Pergola Trentina and Guyot, south-east exposure
Fertilization: No fertilization or irrigation, only biodynamic preparations to stimulate and nourish the organic substance
Treatments: Only Copper and Sulphur at minimum doses, herbal macerates and biodynamic preparations
Harvest: By hand
Fermentation: Spontaneous with only indigenous yeasts

• Maceration: Yes, for three months
• Filtration: None
• Aging: Nine months in steel tanks and subsequent four months in bottle

Notes on the Producer

Located in the hills of Vallata di Mezzane, near Verona, in Veneto, Silvia has taken over her family’s abandoned vineyards and revived them to produce the natural wines as was done in the past without any additives or invasive farming methods. After studying agricultural science this became her passion, tending to the vineyards planted in the 1960’s and 1970’s to Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave, doing everything from vineyard to cellar in order to know intimately the entire process.

The Garganega and Trebbiano were planted in 1970 in mixed soils with predominante limestone depsoits, while the Corvina as planted more recently in 2017. Silvia works tenaciously to produce the best that the land will give them each year, harvesting only by hand so as not to harm the vines and eschewing any treatments or fertilizers, only minimal amounts of copper and sulphur to protect the vines when needed. They allow the land to speak to them and be reflected in the wine, allowing nature take its course in order to preserve the natural biodiversity of the area which is of utmost importance: cultivating olive trees, bee colonies, allowing local vegetation to grow between the vines, nurture the soils and attract local flora to create a long-lasting and healthy environment.

In the cellar, Silvia uses extended maceration time and leaves her wines unfined and unfiltered, just as her ancestors would have done.
-Savio Soares