Aldo Degani

Hand work in Valpolicella

The bunches still move by hand at harvest. Aldo Degani , Winemaker at Aldo Degani in Marano di Valpolicella, works inside a family house where the cellar, the bottling line, and the sale of the finished wine remain close to the same hands. The estate traces its wine activity to 1870 on the Gaso estate in Marano, and that length of time matters here less as romance than as habit: grapes picked, stalks removed, must watched, tanks checked, wines brought forward under the family name. His post is not presented as a borrowed signature laid over a brand. It sits within the daily method of Azienda Agricola F.lli Degani di Aldo Degani, a Valpolicella Classico producer whose work runs through vineyard, cellar, appassimento rooms, bottling, and release.

Follature by the clock

The cellar language is Valpolicella, spoken through Corvina, Rondinella, Corvinone, and Molinara. The vineyards cover approximately 10 hectares between Valgatara, San Pietro in Cariano, and Fumane, set at 150 to 230 meters, a working band of Classico country rather than a decorative backdrop. For Valpolicella Classico DOC, the fruit is softly crushed and destemmed before fermentation. The cellar holds the temperature between 24°C and 27°C, then leaves the must in maceration for 15 days. During that stretch, manual follature happen three times daily for 20 minutes, a bench-side rhythm translated into the language of cap and extraction. After alcoholic fermentation, the wine is decanted and malolactic fermentation begins; stainless steel tanks keep the register on fruit and freshness. The appassimento work carries Amarone and Recioto into another tempo, with grapes dried in local rooms before fermentation decides whether the wine will finish dry, concentrated, and full-bodied, or sweet, dense, and lifted by acidity. Ripasso returns Valpolicella to the skins left from Amarone production, using second contact to build body without leaving the local grammar.

The quiet of the cellar

The place has the feel of a winery that has not separated production from family custody. In Valgatara, within Marano di Valpolicella, the room is quiet enough for cellar work to set the pace: tanks, drying spaces, bottles, and the slow administrative facts of a medium-scale estate. Nothing in the setting asks to be theatrical. The vineyards around Marano, Fumane, and San Pietro in Cariano supply the visual order, while the cellar answers with repeated gestures. The appassimento spaces belong to the house as much as the tasting room does, because Amarone and Recioto are not only labels here; they are the consequence of where the fruit rests, how long it holds, and when the hands move it on.

Wines that keep the house name

The portfolio keeps its center in classic Valpolicella forms: Valpolicella Classico DOC, Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore DOC, Cicilio Superiore Ripasso, Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, Recioto della Valpolicella, and La Rosta Amarone. Those names make the next movement plain enough. Continuity, rather than novelty, is the work to follow at this address, and Degani’s station remains tied to the same decisions of drying fruit, controlling fermentation, and releasing bottles under the Aldo Degani name.