Roberto Mazzi e Figli
Italy / Valpolicella~Veneto
Producer Info
Native ‘Negraresi’, the Mazzi family can trace their history back to the early 1900s, & is descended from the local Dall’Ora family; their fine casa & mulino/mill date from the early 1800s, & the 8ha of vineyards were inherited directly from the Dall’Oras.
Roberto Mazzi began bottling their wines in 1958, & now his sons Stefano (nato ’65) & Antonio (’68) continue his legacy, with Stefano joining in 1987 & Antonio in 1990; Stefano is responsible primarily for the vineyards, having graduated as an Agricultural Engineer, while Antonio studied modern languages (English & German). The cantina is found on the eastern edge of the town of Negrar, just below the cru of San Peretto. Indeed, prior to renaming the cantina after the family in 1979, the winery was known simply as ‘Sanperetto’.
Their vineyards are centred round the Negrar crus of San Peretto, Poiega, Villa, Castel, & Calcarole (for the Recioto); they also now have some vineyards in Marano for the Valpolicella Classico. They take the ‘lotta integrata/lutte raisonee’ approach to working their vines, grassing over, using a ‘freisa’ to clear the area under the rows, cutting the grass & not using any anti-muffa chemicals. No irrigation is used.
Their vinification approach is quite technical, with the emphasis on fruit expression thanks to guyot-trellising, pre-ferment cold soaks & relatively short 10-20 day, roto-fermentations (since 2015) at controlled, lower temperatures using selected yeast to retain the freshness of their grapes (& to help achieve dryness): Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella & also Molinara for acidity. The wines are aged mostly in barriques from Radoux, plus some 16HL botte grande made locally by Mastro Bottaio. Total sulphur levels at bottling are at circa 90mg/Litro.
Sadly Roberto Mazzi passed on in April 2020.
Wines
- Valpolicella Classico – 50/50 Negrar/Marano fruit, drawn from across all vyds. Stainless-steel.
- Valpolicella Classico Superiore ‘Sanperetto’ – also a blend of fruit from across their five vyds, no passito fruit, here the Corvinone adds pulp; aged in botte & barriques, dry, DIAM3 cork
- Valpolicella Classico Superiore ‘Pioega’ – they don’t make a ‘Ripasso’, but the fruit from their single, 2.5ha Poiega vyd is dried for c.35 days before vinfication, then aged for 18/20 mths in barriques. 2g/L RS.
- Amarone della Valpolicella Classica ‘Punta di Villa’ – a single 3ha plot at 238m asl, the fruit undergoes appassimento until January, & post 20day fermentation & maceration, ageing of 30mths in barriques
- Amarone della Valpolicella Classica ‘Castel’ – this 1.5ha smaller plot is located in the Villa cru, high up at the back, on poor calcareous stony stones, giving extra ripeness to the indigenous fruit. Identical vinification & ageing as ‘Punta in Villa’.
- Recioto della Valpolicella ‘Le Calcarole’ – from the single 1ha Negrar vineyard of the same name that lies on small knoll of calcareous stony soils, clay-poor, where the blend of 75% Corvina, 20% Rondinella, & 5% Molinara gives a beautifully pure, fruity expression of Recioto at 15% abv.