Our group of wine travelers, led by Nadia Galati, have now made a stop in San Pietro in Cariano to visit the
Nicolis family. The family has been making  Amarone, Valpolicella and Ripasso wines in the Veneto region since 1951. Their father, Angelo, started the family’s passion for winemaking and has passed that on to the entire family. Now, the winemaking duties have been turned over to Giuseppe and his brother Giancarlo has all the responsibilities in the vineyards.

We took a very interesting tour of the winemaking facilities, seeing the stacks of plateaux,
racks made of a plastic but used to be wood, filled with grapes, piled to the ceiling and the huge fans drying the grapes to a raisiny state to make the Amarone wine was quite eye-opening. This high quality, smaller production winery is a testament to the winemaking values Angelo has passed on to his sons.

After this amazing tour we went into their large tasting/banquet room and had a delicious lunch prepared by their mother. Throughout the lunch we were treated to many of the terrific wines that Nicolis is so famous for, like the Ambrosan Amarone, “Seccal” Valpolicella Ripasso and a great treat, the Nicolis Recioto.

After this visit was a trip into the beautiful city of Verona and a wonderful dinner with Giancarlo and Giuseppe paired with more of the great wines of Nicolis…

winemakers Giusepe and Giancarlo Nicolis and importer Nadia Galati

Ken Amendola

N Florida Wine Supervisor

Follow me on Twitter @abcwinekena