Jewelled wines: time is an art and is celebrated with Mimmo Paladino's signature
Bespoke labels, personal delivery, a limited number of bottles and one goal: the perfection of simplicity. The first 25 years of a made in Italy excellence.
5' min read
5' min read
Respect. Giancarlo Aneri repeats this word often, like a mantra, to explain his philosophy of life and work. And a bit also to explain how, from the Venetian countryside, the son of a stationmaster and a housewife, he came to make the powerful of the earth toast with his wines, to give the "tu tu" to Biagi, Bocca and Montanelli and to involve Luciano Benetton and Giovannino Agnelli in his first adventure as an entrepreneur. It was Enzo Ferrari, whom he met many years ago in Maranello after an anteroom of hours, with six bottles of wine in a briefcase, who reminded him to be respected, and it seems that the lesson was well learned.
He has kept it in mind to this day, that they call him 'the prince of marketing', and a glance at his record of successes is not an exaggerated title; seeing him together with his son Alessandro - two gentlemen from another era, despite the generational differences - another word also comes to mind, and that is family. Leda, his wife, on the label of the Pinot Bianco; Ale is the Pinot Nero, Stella the Amarone that has toasted heads of state.
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"In any situation, even if there is an argument, my children solve everything in no time by coming to an agreement. I don't know if the same thing would happen with external managers," he says. 'Without the family, I wouldn't have achieved much of what I did and I wouldn't now be celebrating 25 years of vintages of my Amarone'. The first, that of 1999, with the wine released in 2003, but tapped from the barrel still maturing to let his lifelong friend Indro Montanelli taste it. In time, because he would not see its release on the market. A wine that seems to be unaffected by health-conscious twists and turns and by the flaunted trends towards no and low alcohol: 'Amarone is still the most fashionable Italian label in the world. Indeed, above fashion, because then those pass. I produce about 12,000 bottles and they have all been assigned for a long time, to large restaurants and exclusive hotels. We are not online, we distribute personally: I want to know where and to whom my wine goes. It is a choice that also means saying many no's and that only a family can afford, not a large company. Because for me this is a life project, not a business'.
Not that business is slack: on a different front, Aneri also produces Prosecco, which is sold in large-scale distribution. And Amarone reaches prices of several thousand euros on the wine lists that count. Valued at 3 thousand euros is the 2001 Riserva in magnum, kept in the new cellar in San Pietro in Cariano, 1,200 square metres in the heart of classic Amarone, with personalised labels for each customer. One of which, bought by Milan president Paolo Scaroni, reached Sinner after the triumph in Australia, because the red tennis player and the magnum share the same year of birth.
To celebrate the first quarter of a century, Aneri will unveil three beautiful designer labels, designed by Mimmo Paladino: 'Paladino, the Italian painter whom I consider to be the greatest, has given us three bespoke 'dresses' to celebrate 25 years since the birth of our Amarone. Everything is linked to a great mutual esteem, which makes this gift even more important,' he emphasises. The other gift was a great emotion, with the recent visit to Pope Francis, who accepted the It is Journalism award, another of the 'follies' that Aneri, a great information enthusiast and devourer of six newspapers a day, created in 1995. 'Now in the Vatican cellars there is a magnum of Amarone signed by the whole family. And we are left with an enormous joy'.
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