Marion

“The hottest winery in Veneto? Well, there are several. But one of them is without question Marion. …I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t love wine who wouldn’t want to drink any of their wines”- Antonio Galloni

The Marion Farm, located in the unspoilt Marcellise valley east of Verona, is a small family run property managed by Stefano Campedelli and his wife Nicoletta.

Recently, their two sons joined the family business: Alberto looks after the vineyards and Giacomo focuses on the winery and winemaking.

 Acquired in the late 80’s the first task the Campedelli family set about to change was the over all vineyard health and lower yields all with the goal of improving overall fruit quality, during this period fruit was sold to local co-ops until 1993 when Stefano met Celestino Gaspari, under the guidance of the ex-cellar master at Guiseppe Quintarelli and current adviser to Romano dal Forno, Marion was born.

Since 2010, the Campedelli family collaborates with oenologist Damiano Peroni.

Starting with the 1996 vintage producing a mere 5 barrels Stefano & Celestino set about creating a unique expression that payed tribute to the massive potential of the region that was being explored by Marion’s contemporaries at the time. The 27ha property was originally planted with not only Corvina, Corvinone, Oseleta & Rondinella of which now account for 100% of the cepage of the Borgomarcelise, Valpolicella Superiore & Amarone but the also permitted blending varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Croatina & Teroldego. The Campedelli family decided these ‘blending’ varietals were not necessary and in fact detracted from what make Valpolicella unique, a sentiment shared by Gaspari, Quintarelli & Dalforno instead opting to express some of these varieties individually as well as creating a ‘field blend’ in the Calto and reserving the native varietals for their DOC & DOCG wines.

Marion only work with the fruit of their own vineyards, hand picking each parcel of vineyard and vinifying individually to allow each varietal to develop its own unique character before blending. Apassimento is utilised alongside more modern winemaking doctrines all focusing on purveying the purest expressions of their terroir. The wines all start life in large stainless steel fermenters before passing into 3000L Slavonian oak Garbellotto botti where the wines will spend 3 years without racking, only regular topping. The fruit destined for apassimento takes the same course but after meticulous inspection for imperfections graduates to purpose built drying rooms in the eves of the winery for 8-10 weeks. These wines remain separate until the final blend is assembled, after which the wines will spend 6 months in inox prior to bottling. No new oak is implemented at Marion, all wines used to season new barrels are sold to local co-ops.