Wines
Summary
Villa Calicantus is a small organic and biodynamic winery in the heart of Bardolino Classico owned by Chiara and Daniele Delaini. Founded in 1860 by Daniele’s great-grandfather, then later inherited by his grandfather in 1920, the family, over the years, became one of the largest producers of Bardolino. With the death of Daniele’s grandfather in the early 1970s, production lapsed and eventually stopped altogether. Flash forward thirty years with Daniele inheriting the original villa and land from an aunt, he cultivated a small parcel and made wine in a neighbor’s garage while the Villa Calicantus house and cellar were being repaired. Today, Daniele and his wife farm 8 hectares of vineyards located on some of the highest elevation sites in the Classico zone. His familial trajectory having traveled from being one of the largest producers in Bardolino Classico to one of the smallest
The multi-decade cessation of Daniele’s family’s involvement in Bardolino was likely the providential key to Daniele’s winegrowing approach and philosophy in that those missing generations weren’t present to get caught up in the area’s inglorious fall from historic zone to that of one making industrially-produced, insipid wines. From the beginning of the current iteration of Villa Calicantus in 2011, all work has been organic and since 2014, biodynamic. The yields are drastically lower than those allowed by the DOC, and the wines are aged longer than most.
