Why I tesori di Villa Sostaga

Why did I create the treasures of Villa Sostaga, my e-commerce for wines?

The first answer I would like to give you is because the numerous wine e-commerce sites online are, for me, Supermarkets, or rather Discount stores: they offer, but above all they highlight in order to induce you to buy, only what is most convenient for them to sell. They induce you with discounts to buy bottles, bought at a discounted price from the winemakers, probably because they are unsold. There is no care or intention in dwelling on the quality of the wine on offer. With “I Tesori di Villa Sostaga” I want to do exactly the opposite: I want to offer a selection of rare labels for a new and authentic wine buying experience, where excellence and wine experience take centre stage.

This project stems first and foremost from my personal passion: wine is a fascinating, bewitching and living creature, whose best fruits come from the love of small winemakers, who are the protagonists at the centre of my wine e-commerce. Of many, I personally visited the cellars, the vineyards and chose each bottle because I was moved by the winemakers’ care for their land, their vineyards and their products.

It was not by buying, or even drinking wine, that I fell madly in love with it. Of course, I always liked it, but it was when I started travelling to discover what was behind a wine bottle that I really began to get passionate about it.

I had the joy, the fortune and the privilege of meeting extraordinary people, such as Cristina and Diego from Cantrina, independent winemakers, artists of oenology who here on Lake Garda have been able to achieve wine excellence of absolute value with their Nepomuceno and Il Sole di Dario. Not only that: I have met characters bordering on madness (healthy madness of course!) such as Claudio Mariotto, who gave my wife a tour of his vineyards, on the condition, however, that she was barefoot out of respect for the soil of his vineyards. I visited science-fiction cellars, such as Cantina Laimburg, which more than a wine cellar looks like the ‘Spectre’ from the James Bond films, literally carved out of the rock. As does the Cantina dei Produttori del Barbaresco: an extraordinary example of how cooperation between different wine winemakers can yield bottles whose excellence is in the forefront of the world’s greatest wines.

There is one thing I want to make clear to you: I am by no means an admirer of so-called ‘natural wines’, simply because natural wine does not exist. Wine – in nature – does not exist. Wines undoubtedly originate from a product of the earth, of nature, i.e. bunches of grapes, but it is only thanks to the millennial ingenuity of man, who has been engaged in production since its beginnings, that wine can be born.
There is no wine without man, and this is why I have placed at the centre of my wine e-commerce the small winemakers, or rather men and women who dedicate their lives to the fruits of the earth, taking care of their vineyards every day and in every season, fragile creatures in need of infinite care and unconditional love so that they can offer us their best fruits, enhancing their aromas and flavours, allowing for exceptional sensory and taste experiences. No other beverage in the world can remotely compare to the experience of a great bottle of wine.

What do I mean by great bottles of wine?
It is difficult to describe in words, because we are talking about emotions, therefore subjective values and susceptible to my mood, the climate, everything around me. Even when my customers ask me what my favourite bottle of wine is, I never know what to answer, there are so many different ones. I love the great Italian “Metodo Classico” sparkling wines, as well as the Champagnes of our French cousins; I love light reds like Alicante, velvety like Lacrima di Morro d’Alba or spicy like Verduno Pelaverga or Schioppettino (how can I not mention another incredible character like Bressan?); I love Brunello di Montalcino; I adore the great Nebbiolos of the Langhe in all their declinations, from Langhe Nebbiolo to Barolo and Barbaresco; I am a passionate lover of Chiavennasca, the great Nebbiolos of Valtellina such as Inferno, Sassella, Valgella, Grumello and Maroggia.

And what about the white wines?
It could be an endless list, but since I especially like to ‘make it weird’ I will tell you that I love long-aged white wines: the Gavi di Gavi, the Timorasso of the aforementioned Claudio Mariotto and the ‘Grand Master of Timorasso’ Walter Massa, but I am equally fond of the elegance and sobriety of the Prié Blanc de Morgex et de la Salle, an example of the extreme wines cultivated in the inaccessible mountains of the Valle d’Aosta at an altitude of over 1,000 metres. I also love the minerality of Sicilian wines that express all the variety of an arid, even volcanic, land surrounded by the sea.

But how can we forget, in every form and expression of white or red wines that they may be, an area as oenologically (and not only) extraordinary as the Amalfi Coast with its Furore and Ravello. Then there is also Aglianico, the ‘great Barolo of the South Italy’, which takes years and years, a yearning wait, a very long courtship in which it refines to offer itself to us with extraordinary power and elegance.

And the Tintilia del Molise? The Bombino? The Lagarino Bianco? You cannot imagine how much it fills my heart with sadness that most Italians still do not know the quantity and above all the variety of indigenous grape varieties that Italy has to offer. A heritage that no other country in the world can boast: we have more than 500 varieties of indigenous vines, which account for about half of all existing vines in the world.

Single Vineyard (to put it like the ‘good’ ones), or cuvée? Single-vineyard wines have their charm, no doubt about it, but especially in white and sparkling wines I have developed a great and personal passion for cuvées (i.e. the blending of different grape varieties) because they offer the winemaker the opportunity to express himself like an artist in front of a blank canvas: each cuvée is unique and inimitable.

By now I have lost count of how many times I have exclaimed during visits to my wine cellar at the Hotel and Restaurant Villa Sostaga: “You cannot imagine how much life there is beyond Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc!”

So this is why “I Tesori di Villa Sostaga” was born, because I would like to take you by the hand one by one and personally accompany you on the extraordinary journey into the world of wine that I began to undertake 20 years ago.

Search my e-commerce of wines like you would a truffle hound, go beyond your habits, leave your comfort zone to discover how extraordinary, vast and varied the world of wine is. And above all, drink for the pleasure of tasting a product ‘of blood and sweat’.

With this project, I want to invite you to drink wine for all the emotion that a great bottle can offer you. To enjoy each sip with due respect for all those women and men who give us these labels by working the land in the vineyard, tending the musts in their cellars, and patiently waiting years before the fruit of all this enormous work reaches us.

Behind every great man there is a great woman, someone once said.

I can tell you that behind every great bottle there is a great winemaker. A human being, his story, his passion. In the same way, “I Tesori di Villa Sostaga” is the fruit of my passion.

Thank you for reading me and I hope you have an intense and beautiful wine experience here.