“The biggest break with tradition in terms of winemaking technique comes, perhaps predictably, with the most self-conscious departure on the marketing front as well,” writes Smart.
Many drinkers today don’t go in for too much reverence. That poses a challenge for a well-established family wine producers like Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine, founded in 1925 in Verona. Pasqua makes a range of wines from a humble prosecco (Passione Sentimento Prosecco) to a top-drawer Amorone for the discerning and well-heeled.
With the young in particular ready to be lured away by cocktails and hard seltzer, the risk is that the firm’s years of excellence and craftsmanship don’t get noticed. For Riccardo Pasqua, the chief executive, the conundrum has been solved by boldly reinventing the style of some wines. He is also aggressively embracing distinctive branding laced with what he has called “a little pinch of smartly provocative boldness”.
Unconventional tasting: Poet Arch Hades recites while critics taste at Maison Assouline, London
It’s a twin track approach – painstaking work in the winery plus some sassy marketing where appropriate. Pasqua now brands itself the “House of the Unconventional”. It likes to work with edgy artists and its brand values are epitomised by the tasting event we’ve been invited to. The venue is Maison Assouline on Piccadilly, half high-end bar, half bookshop that is owned by the Assouline family, scions of luxury publishing, with LVMH a shareholder. And we are invited to hear the poetry of striking Russian-born British poet Arch Hades, who sold an NFT of a new poem for $525,000. Yes, we are talking about serious money and serious chic here.
In terms of the wines themselves, three categories of the Pasqua wines represent real innovations and breaks from tradition.
The star is unquestionably the Mai Dire Mai Amarone Valpolicella (abv 15%, £95 RRP). We are trying the 2012 vintage. Comprising Corvina 65%, Corvinone 15% and Rondinella 10%, Mai Dire Mai (which translates as “never say never”) has been routinely winning tasters’ scores of 95 or 96.
The year 2012 had a mild winter with little rain. There were high temperatures in summer, again with little rain, compensated for by low temperatures in August. Fermentation took place in stainless steel tanks, for 40 days and maturation in new French oak barriques for 24 months. Full-bodied with excellent tannins, and a deliciously long finish it is, well, simply addictive.
Above all, it’s a pretty new approach to Amarone. Pasqua tells me: “This is the first Amorone to break away from an opulent style. It’s more austere and more ‘vertical”, by which I mean, very dry. That style is now conquering the world.”
Less spectacular – and a whole lot cheaper – is what the firm has done with rosé. Tonight we are tasting the Rosé 11 Minutes Trevenezie 2021 (abv 13% £12.75 RRP) and the Rosé Y by 11 Minutes Trevenezie 2020 (abv 13% £20 RRP). Aware, presumably, of the runaway success of Provençal rosés, the firm decided it would see if it could outdo the French on their own terms. Inevitably, then, the Italian offerings boast that pale colour so much sought after by the rosé devotees. Again, it’s won quite a new range of customers over to Pasqua.
The biggest break with tradition in terms of winemaking technique comes, perhaps predictably, with the most self-conscious departure on the marketing front as well.
When in 2020 Pasqua launched off on a norm-bending multi-vintage white wine from Soave they cast around for a name. They chose Hey French, You Could Have Made This But You Didn’t (abv 13.5% £32 RRP). Blending Garganega, Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc grapes from four vintages – 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 – it’s designed as the most powerful expression possible from the vineyards it comes from. It’s complex, fruit-focused and complex. Though not in the same league as the Amarone, this too has achieved tasters’ ratings in the mid-nineties.
All the wines mentioned are available from Harrods.
