Giuseppe Quintarelli: a short history

The Quintarelli estate sits in the hamlet of Cerè, above Negrar, in the hills of Valpolicella Classico north of Verona. It is small, about eleven or twelve hectares of vines, and it has been run by one family for a century.

Silvio, 1924

Silvio Quintarelli had worked other people's vines as a sharecropper. In 1924 he set up on his own account at Cerè, on the slopes of Monte Ca' Paletta. His son Giuseppe, known to everyone as Bepi, was born in 1927 and grew up working in the vineyards.

Bepi, 1950 to 2012

Giuseppe took over in 1950, aged 22, and ran the estate for six decades. At a time when much of the region was moving towards volume, he went the other way: strict selection of grapes, long and slow drying for the wines made by the appassimento method, and then years in large Slavonian oak casks. The Amarone spends around seven years in cask and the Riserva longer still. He released wine when he judged it ready and not before, and in years he thought fell short of Amarone he bottled the wine as Rosso del Bepi instead.

He was traditional but not closed to new ideas. He planted Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot alongside the local Corvina, and from them made Alzero, a Cabernet from dried grapes, and Primofiore, a younger wine that blends local and Bordeaux varieties. There is also a dry white, Bianco Secco, a sweet Recioto, and in rare years Amabile del Cerè. The labels, in their handwritten script, have hardly changed.

The wines began to reach New York in the 1970s, and the estate's name spread from there. Romano Dal Forno, who went on to found his own estate nearby, learned from him and called him the guru of Valpolicella.

The family today

Giuseppe Quintarelli died in January 2012, aged 84. His daughter Fiorenza, her husband Giampaolo Grigoli and their sons Francesco and Lorenzo run the estate now, and they have kept the methods as they were: the same long drying, the same casks, the same patience.

At Vinco

We have an allocation of the current releases, including the Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2019, the Amarone Riserva 2015 and the Alzero 2018, shipping early in 2027. You can see the Quintarelli wines on our list, or get in touch if you would like to talk them through.