Some wines you buy for the label. Quintarelli you buy for everything behind it: a family on a hillside above Negrar, grapes drying slowly on rush mats through the Veronese winter, and wines that sit quietly in old Slavonian oak casks for years before anyone is allowed to open them. Ask anyone who loves Italian wine to name the greatest producer in Valpolicella, and there's a good chance this is the name you'll hear.

We've just welcomed a small parcel of Quintarelli into the cellar, so it felt like the right moment to tell the story.

Bepi, the maestro of Valpolicella

Giuseppe Quintarelli, known to everyone as "Bepi", was born in Negrar on 19 March 1927, in the heart of the Valpolicella Classico zone north of Verona. His father, Silvio, had been a mezzadro, a sharecropper, before establishing the family's own winery in 1924 in the tiny hamlet of Cerè, on the slopes of Monte Ca' Paletta. The family still lives and works there today.

Bepi began working in the vineyards as a young man and took over the estate in the 1950s. Over a career of around sixty years he turned it into a benchmark, not with marketing (the family has always been famously low-key) but through sheer, stubborn attention to detail. "The secret of my wine? I follow my rules, I do not run behind the fashions," he once told an Italian journalist. Romano Dal Forno, who learned from him before founding his own celebrated estate, called him "the guru of Valpolicella".

He was a traditionalist, but never a stick-in-the-mud. In the early 1980s he planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, the first in the appellation, alongside the local Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella. His wines began reaching New York in the 1970s, and their reputation has only grown since. Bepi passed away in January 2012, aged 84.

Time, patience and dried grapes

Nothing is hurried at Quintarelli. The grapes are picked by hand over several passes through the vineyards, and those destined for the great reds are laid out in wooden boxes or on rush mats to dry. This is appassimento, the age-old Veronese technique that concentrates sugar and flavour. Noble rot starts to appear around November and develops through January, and the grapes are finally pressed at the end of January.

Fermentation begins naturally with indigenous yeasts and runs for weeks. The wines then go into large Slavonian oak barrels, many of them old and ornately carved, where the Amarone, Rosso del Bepi, Valpolicella and Rosso Ca' del Merlo each spend around seven years before bottling. That's a remarkable amount of patience for a family producing only around 4,000 cases a year.

Then there are the labels. Quintarelli bottles are instantly recognisable, with labels that carry Bepi's handwritten style. It's a small detail that says a lot about the estate: personal, handmade and unhurried.

Only in the great years

Perhaps the most telling thing about Quintarelli is what it chooses not to make. Amarone is produced only in exceptional vintages, and a Riserva only when conditions are truly special. In more average years the grapes are declassified into Rosso del Bepi (Bepi's nickname, of course), which is made the same way and aged just as long. In poor years, neither is made at all.

The rest of the range is just as considered: the sweet Recioto della Valpolicella, made only in great vintages; Alzero, Bepi's Amarone-style take on Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot; and the rare, noble-rot-affected Amabile del Cerè "Bandito".

The family today

As Bepi's health declined, his daughter Fiorenza and her husband Giampaolo Grigoli took over the day-to-day running of the estate, together with their sons Francesco and Lorenzo, who grew up in their grandfather's cellar. The family has kept things exactly as he would have wanted: hand-harvesting, careful selection, long ageing and a refusal to chase fashion.

The Quintarelli wines in our cellar

We have four Quintarelli wines in stock right now, in small quantities.

2025 Giuseppe Quintarelli Bianco Secco, $121. The estate's dry white, led by Garganega with Trebbiano Toscano, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Saorin (the local name for Friulano), grown on limestone and basalt. It's pressed straight after harvest and stirred on its lees, giving a fresh, floral and textural white. Lovely with risotto, seafood or soft cheeses. We have just one bottle.

2024 Giuseppe Quintarelli 'Primofiore', $167. The "first flower" is the youngest red the estate releases each year: half Corvina and Corvinone, half Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, with the Cabernet partly dried. It's perfumed and approachable, and a great introduction to the house style. Pour it with salumi, pasta or a roast.

2019 Giuseppe Quintarelli Valpolicella Classico Superiore, $276. The wine that changed the world's idea of what Valpolicella could be. Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella, half fresh and half dried for two months, are re-fermented on the lees of the Amarone (the ripasso method), then aged for seven years in large Slavonian oak. Superb with braised meats, game or aged cheeses.

2019 Giuseppe Quintarelli Rosso 'Ca' del Merlo', $276. A single-vineyard red of Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella with a little Cabernet, Nebbiolo, Croatina and Sangiovese. It's made with the same ripasso approach and seven years in Slavonian oak. Savoury and layered, it's made for slow-cooked ragù, wild mushrooms or a long Sunday braise.

Serving and cellaring

• Give the reds air. Long-aged wines like the Valpolicella and Ca' del Merlo open up beautifully with an hour or so in a decanter.
• Serve the reds just below room temperature. Around 16 to 18°C lets the fruit and savoury notes shine. Chill the Bianco Secco, but not too hard, or you'll lose its texture.
• Think hearty, Veronese food. Risotto all'Amarone, braised beef, mushrooms, game and aged cheeses like Monte Veronese or Parmigiano Reggiano are natural partners.
• Cellar with confidence. These reds are released ready to enjoy, but they're built to last. Store them lying down somewhere cool, dark and steady, and they'll reward patience. The Bianco Secco and Primofiore are the ones to open sooner.

A cellar worth building around

Quintarelli is made in tiny quantities and never hangs around for long, so if one of these has caught your eye, we'd suggest not waiting. You'll find all four on their product pages above.

And if you'd like wines like these to be part of something bigger, our Private Cellar Master service is where we come in. We'll get to know your taste, source the allocations that are hard to find, and stock and look after your cellar, so the right bottle is always there when the moment calls for it.

Cheers,
Josh