Tenuta di Valpolicella

The Rizzardi estate in Negrar, 1649–1678

In 1649 Carlo Rizzardi moved from Toscolano Maderno to Valpolicella. He acquired a property in Negrar that already included a vineyard and cellar, establishing the Rizzardi family estate in the area. The first wines bearing the Rizzardi name followed in 1678. Agriculture at Negrar was initially diverse: the family managed arable fields, forage crops, woodland, vines, olives and fruit trees rather than operating an exclusively viticultural property.

Pojega and the expansion of the estate, 1783–19th century

In 1783 Count Antonio Rizzardi commissioned the Veronese architect Luigi Trezza to create the Garden of Pojega at the heart of the agricultural estate. Conceived as a setting for leisure and entertainment, the garden was laid out between 1783 and 1796. Its formal Italian geometry was combined with the emerging picturesque sensibility of Romanticism, using perspective avenues, hedges, water, sculpture and architecture to shape the landscape. The original drawings are preserved in the Biblioteca Civica di Verona.

The family enlarged the Negrar property in 1810 by purchasing additional nearby vineyards. Viticultural expansion continued during the 19th century, including land on the hills of Calcarole and around Rovereti. Villa Rizzardi, the 19th-century residence beside the garden, became the principal house at the centre of the estate; it underwent restoration during the 1850s. The rustic buildings of the historic courtyard housed the wine cellars.

The creation of Guerrieri Rizzardi, 1913–1914

In 1913 Carlo Rizzardi married Giuseppina Guerrieri, the last descendant of the Guerrieri family. Her dowry included vineyards and wineries in Bardolino and Val d’Adige. The marriage united the two families under the Guerrieri Rizzardi name, and the first vintage carrying the combined name was 1914.

Specialisation after the Second World War

From the 1950s, engineer Count Antonio Rizzardi, son of Carlo Rizzardi and Giuseppina Guerrieri, managed and developed the family farms. He progressively replaced the former polyculture with more specialised vine growing. Family members remained personally involved in vineyard and cellar work, particularly during harvest.

After Antonio’s death in 1983, Contessa Maria Cristina Loredan Rizzardi assumed responsibility for the family business. She expanded the vineyards, developed new wines and pursued international markets. From 1985 she applied the concept of the cru as a quality expression tied to a precisely defined vineyard, an approach particularly relevant to the named sites of the Negrar estate.

New varieties and individual vineyards, late 1990s–2006

Giuseppe, Orsola, Olimpia and Agostino Rizzardi—the third generation of the combined Guerrieri Rizzardi company—began joining the business in the late 1990s. New vineyards and varieties were matched to soil characteristics, training systems were refined, and control of the entire estate-grown and estate-bottled production chain remained a central objective.

Merlot was planted in the historic, walled Rovereti vineyard from the late 1990s after the variety proved well adapted to its climate and red-clay soil. The first Clos Roareti vintage was produced in 2006. This became an estate expression outside the traditional Valpolicella blends, produced only when the Merlot reaches the desired level of quality.

Thirteenth-generation stewardship and sustainability

The family business is now led by Agostino and Giuseppe Rizzardi, representing the 13th generation of the Rizzardi family. Vineyard management has developed around parcel-specific work, yield control, permanent or sown ground cover, reduced herbicide use, support for beneficial insects and biodiversity, and limited emergency irrigation. The organization began implementing the Equalitas SOPD sustainability system in November 2023 and subsequently obtained Equalitas certification under Certificate of Conformity No. 84222/20241107.

Restoration and renewed public role, 2022–2026

The Garden of Pojega underwent almost three years of restoration and enhancement supported by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The work followed Luigi Trezza’s original designs, restored paths and botanical balance, introduced agapanthus, irises, tulips and 21,000 daffodils of three types, and recovered more than 60 stone sculptures attributed to Pietro Muttoni. The restored garden reopened on 1 April 2025 with new accessibility provisions, including Italian Sign Language videos, tactile Braille panels and an audio guide with a children’s version.

In 2026 the estate continued developing the garden as a cultural and social space through the Therapeutic Garden Days, organized with IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital and the Municipality of Negrar di Valpolicella. The 2026 programme addressed aphasia and brought together patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, associations and visitors. Part of the proceeds was allocated to A.IT.A. Veneto to support people living with aphasia and their families.

Position and landscape

The estate’s vineyards and cellar are in Negrar di Valpolicella, one of the five municipalities included in the Valpolicella Classico zone. The vineyards occupy a hilly landscape between approximately 170 and 230 metres above sea level. The surrounding countryside is formed by small hills planted with vines, olives and cherry trees. Its climate is influenced by the mountains and the proximity of Lake Garda.

The estate contains both hillside vineyards shaped by erosion and lower valley-floor sites near pre-Alpine streams running broadly north–south. Soils are generally fairly deep, predominantly clay-textured, with little coarse skeletal material, high limestone content and moderate drainage.

Estate soils and mesoclimates

Clay and limestone define the broad estate profile, but named sites show important variations. Calcarole is a terraced hillside vineyard reaching 230 metres, with a particularly warm mesoclimate, calcareous and pebbly ground, and a south-west exposure. Pojega, beside the historic garden, has clay-sandy soil with a medium limestone content. The walled Rovereti vineyard has red clay and clay-sandy soil with high limestone and notable magnesium, iron and zinc content; Merlot has been cultivated there since the late 1990s.

Soil analyses are normally conducted every four years and always before a new vineyard is planted, informing both site preparation and initial fertilisation.

Viticulture is managed parcel by parcel. Meticulous pruning generally leaves a single cane under the simple-Guyot system and restricts bunch numbers. Work is adjusted to each plot to control yield, while individual supervision programmes and maturity monitoring determine harvest timing. Three teams combining younger and experienced personnel work across the family estates, with a dedicated team at Negrar.

Both pergola and row-training systems are retained. Pergola-trained vines protect bunches from sunburn and light hail; in the extreme 2023 season, the estate’s approximately 10 ha of pergola helped preserve grape quality. Row-trained vineyards include simple Guyot blocks at Rovereti, Calcarole, Tomenighe and Pigozzara.

Permanent spontaneous grass cover is maintained across the company’s vineyards, with selected parcels enriched by melliferous species. This reduces erosion on slopes and terraces, limits compaction, preserves soil microporosity, improves biological fertility and supports pollinators, including wild bees. Other cover-crop projects use peas, vetch and clover between rows; after summer mowing, this material supplies natural fertility. Shrubs and trees around vineyards provide habitat for insects that help constrain vine pests.

Soil chemistry and physical structure are analysed on average every four years and before every new planting. Results guide base fertilisation and help reduce nutrient leaching and nitrate contamination of groundwater.

In Negrar, chemical weed control is currently restricted to a strip only a few centimetres wide beneath the vines, with no more than two interventions annually. The longer-term reduction programme began in 2001 by replacing chemical fertilisers with organic inputs. Mechanical under-vine cultivation was introduced in 2014, requiring approximately three passes per year, and a 2015 programme replaced synthetic pesticides with chiefly copper- and sulphur-based protection against powdery mildew, downy mildew, grape moths and botrytis.

Irrigation is reserved for emergencies during critical phases such as berry enlargement, from mid-June to late July before veraison. Depending on weather, two or three seasonal applications are considered sufficient. Water comes through regulated reclamation consortia and authorised, metered estate wells.

Before machine harvesting, damaged or underripe bunches are removed manually. Hand-picked fruit undergoes visual selection, and grapes intended for appassimento are selected manually into ventilated boxes. Equalitas certification covers environmental, social and economic management under Certificate of Conformity no. 84222/20241107.

Vinification takes place in the estate cellar at Negrar so that fruit travels as little as possible after harvest. Stainless-steel tanks are used, while maturation across the Valpolicella range employs tanks, large oak barrels, tonneaux and barriques. Winemaking protocols are adapted to individual varieties and reviewed annually, with finesse, elegance and balance as the stylistic objectives.

Fruit for Amarone is selected by hand and placed in boxes for natural drying in nearby, well-ventilated fruttai. Bunches are arranged carefully to maintain airflow. In 2020, approximately 19,000 boxes were filled at a little over 4 kg per box. Drying length responds to vintage conditions: pressing began in November during the rich, rapidly drying 2016 season; in 2018 it began in December; and the 2023 appassimento fruit was crushed during the final ten days of November and early December.

The estate’s Valpolicella production includes alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. Stainless steel and concrete tanks are used for shorter maturation. Ripasso is made by refermenting Valpolicella on Amarone pomace; after malolactic fermentation, it is matured for 12 months in oak.

Estate red wines intended for longer development mature in barriques, larger barrels and tonneaux. Fruit from the walled Rovereti parcel is destemmed and crushed, fermented in stainless steel, undergoes malolactic fermentation and a long post-fermentation maceration; its representative maturation regime is approximately 12 months in 225-litre French-oak barriques, around one-quarter new.

Production is controlled from vineyard to bottling, and the wines are presented as estate-grown and estate-bottled. Cellar processing aids and additives are restricted to the technical minimum. Bentonite is used for protein stability, while yeast derivatives, lysates and mannoproteins support fermentation. Animal-origin processing aids are minimised in favour of alternatives suitable for vegetarian and vegan regimes.

The family’s production philosophy places the relationship between land, history and tradition at its centre while accepting innovations considered necessary for quality. Regional and international varieties are selected according to the characteristics of individual soils rather than custom alone. Barbera, Sangiovese and Merlot are therefore treated as longstanding components of the estate’s identity alongside Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella.

The objective is to produce and bottle at origin, retaining control from the vineyard through the cellar. Vineyard selection and the cru concept distinguish well-defined sites, while viticulture, harvest dates and winemaking protocols are adjusted to each parcel, grape variety and vintage.

The intended style emphasises finesse, elegance and balance rather than excessive concentration. Harvest decisions seek full maturity while retaining freshness, and pergola training remains valuable as climatic conditions become hotter and more extreme.

The current sustainability programme treats environmental, social and economic responsibility as connected obligations. Its principles include permanent grass cover, biodiversity protection, precise soil and water management, reduced reliance on non-renewable resources, lighter packaging, local procurement where practical and continuous measurement of environmental impacts.