Romano Dal Forno

Low yields in the Val d'Illasi

Low yields set the pace for Romano Dal Forno, winemaker at Romano Dal Forno in Cellore d'Illasi. The work sits on sloping vineyards in the Val d'Illasi, where alluvial soils and a 1000 feet elevation give the house its frame before any decision in the cellar begins. The place carries the same name as its maker, a direct arrangement that suits a winery built around the hand, the method, and the discipline of selection. Dal Forno works with Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Oseleta, and Croatina, the varieties that feed the house's still red program and its Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG. The estate is small in scale, with 50,000 bottles annually from an 8-34ha estate, and that figure matters because it keeps the reader close to the bench-side reality of the work. This is not an anonymous volume house. It is a cellar in which the maker's name, the label, and the valley remain tightly joined.

Amarone by selection and patience

The focus here is still red wine, with Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG at the center of the house's reputation. The published outline names a handcrafted, quality-focused approach, low yields, and innovative techniques, which is enough to understand the discipline without pretending to enter a cellar protocol the house has not set out in detail. The varieties carry different tasks in the blend: Corvina and Corvinone give structure and local identity, Rondinella belongs to the regional grammar, while Oseleta and Croatina add their own darker register. The production philosophy is conventional, but the word should not be mistaken for ease. At this scale, conventional still means repeated decisions in the vineyard and cellar, fruit by fruit and vessel by vessel, with the method held against the style the house has chosen to pursue. The wine program is narrow rather than diffuse. It asks the vineyards to speak in red, and it asks the cellar to keep that voice disciplined.

The cellar above Cellore d'Illasi

The setting does some of the work before a glass is poured. Sloping vineyards rise in the Val d'Illasi, on alluvial soils, with modern winery facilities set into a quiet register rather than a theatrical one. The tasting room is private, intimate, elegant, rustic, and sophisticated; those words matter less as mood than as boundaries. They suggest a visit scaled to attention, not traffic. In a winery like this, the useful texture is not noise but interval: the quiet of the cellar, the held line of the vineyard, the distance between the valley floor and the rows above it. The room has to leave space for Amarone, a wine that arrives with density already in the glass.

A house measured by its own name

The winery carries awards, and the arrangement between maker, cellar, and place. Romano Dal Forno is still in post here, and the house continues to be read through that alignment. Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG comes from Cellore d'Illasi.