For many years, Valpolicella was more of a “brand” in the US, but today’s beautiful wine from Musella deserves to be justly celebrated as a serious wine of place. Indeed, we’re guilty of often focusing on the process of winemaking here–fresh grapes for Valpolicella, dried grapes for Amarone, and something in between for Ripasso–but, as their importer aptly describes, Musella is a “modern-day Garden of Paradise” just outside the beautiful city of Verona, and therefore the vineyard, land, and farming are just as important here as the winemaking process. Without any new oak or raisinated grapes, this old-school bottling of Valpolicella is a transparent, and exuberant window into the terroir of this sub-Alpine region of northern Italy. It’s time to (re)discover why classic Valpolicella took the world by storm!

The Valpolicella growing zone lies just north of Verona, in Italy’s Veneto region, about an hour drive west of Venice. The vineyards are planted on the steep, Alpine foothills that rise slowly towards the Dolomites. The soils here are mostly iron-rich red clay, with pockets of tufo (porous limestone). In the past several decades the process of making wine from dried grapes has been the focus, but historically wines like this “Superiore” were the driving economic force of the region. That history was front of mind when the Pasqua Di Bisceglie family took the reins of the Musella estate. It’s a vast property, covering roughly 1,000 acres in and around the town of San Martino Buon Albergo, in the Valpolicella DOC zone. Most of the property is wild forest, with about 60 vineyard acres farmed according to biodynamic principles. Since 1995, the famil