La Collina dei Ciliegi Camponi Corvina 2023
£13.45
The wine
Enticing aromas of wild strawberry, ripe cherry and violet prelude a bright, juicy palate bursting with cool-climate red fruit and a long, flavoursome finish. Corvina on its own, and all the better for it.
Corvina is the heart of every Valpolicella blend and is rarely bottled alone. Given its own label it shows what it actually contributes: sour cherry fruit, moderate tannin, high acidity and the faintly bitter almond note that marks the region. At 700 metres it keeps a freshness the valley floor cannot match.
The producer
La Collina dei Ciliegi
View all La Collina dei Ciliegi winesArmando Gianolli bought abandoned plots around the village of Erbin in the 1950s and 60s and planted more than 3,000 cherry trees, which is where the name comes from: the hill of cherries. His son Massimo turned the project into a serious wine estate, establishing 31 hectares of vineyard in 2005.
The site is what makes it interesting. Valpantena is the highest reach of Valpolicella, a narrow valley running north from Verona, and the estate's vineyards climb to 700 metres surrounded by forest. That is genuinely cool-climate ground for a region better known for warmth and concentration, and it shows in the wines: more perfume, brighter acidity and less of the sheer weight that Valpolicella can carry.
Everything is farmed sustainably, and the range covers the full Valpolicella sequence from fresh red through Ripasso and Amarone to the sweet Recioto, alongside whites from Garganega. Altitude matters increasingly as vintages warm, and estates working this high have an advantage their neighbours on the valley floor do not.
