«The Masters»
The Master is the individual who is expert and skilled in what he does; someone who has gained experience and knows well the fundamentals of his job; someone to whom people turn to for insight and who has the responsibility to preserve and pass on this knowledge.
A knowledge that has been passed on over the years, thus creating more generations of skillful masters.
«Ancient Wine»
Wine as it was once made, well made and full of memories;
According to the collective imagination, a healthier, wholesome and natural wine.
End of the 19th Century
The history of the Menti winery has the roots of its winemaking tradition in the figure of Giovanni Menti, who at the end of the 19th century, moved from the district called “Menti di Sopra” located in the Agno valley to the bottom of eastern Lessinia.
Here in Gambellara, with effort and dedication, Giovanni began to cultivate the lands received as an inheritance from his wife’s family, dedicating himself to the cultivation of fruit trees, legumes, vegetables as well as olives and Garganega vines, a grape variety that is well suited to the volcanic soil of Gambellara.
Giovanni passed on all his knowledge about agriculture and viticulture to his son Antonio, who kept those teachings in mind despite the tough times of World War II. During Antonio’s years of captivity in Germany, the farm’s activity was temporarily interrupted.
Once back in Gambellara, he resumed cultivating the land, among others by increasing the garganega grape production and he even began to make both dry white wines and dessert wines.
So began the realization of a dream: making genuine wines not only for his own family, but also for friends, neighbours and whoever would have wanted a taste of the territory.
Half a century of harvests
Giovanni, Antonio’s son and namesake of the winery’s founder, started working with his father in 1964 at the age of 16. From the beginning of the 70s he begun bottling the wines Gambellara, Recioto di Gambellara, and Vin Santo di Gambellara. Giovanni, also called “Gianni”, went on working beside his son Stefano until retirement, after reaching the remarkable milestone of 51 harvests in 2014.
The pursuit of a sustainable agriculture
Starting from the 70s the winery was already managed with an organic method. The scarce availability of chemical products at the time, “forced” producers to opt for an organic farming, only to yield, later on, to a more conventional approach driven by a quantity-focused production trend, which most of the times meant sacrificing the product quality.
Since 2002, at the behest of Stefano, the winery philosophy turned back to a more sustainable form of viticulture, as it used to be back at the time of his great-grandfather Giovanni.
Stefano aims at producing wines intended to be a sincere expression of his terroir, with no compromises; to preserve and give value to the resources available focusing on the respect for the environment and the health of the consumer.
So, for him, years of experimentation, study and research for agriculture began which embraced the values of sustainability and authenticity Stefano aspired to.
As a consequence, he approached biodynamic agriculture, which he effectively introduced in the farm starting from 2010. Later on he obtained the organic farming certification in 2011.
Since then, Stefano has been working with dedication to spread and teach visitors his philosophy of respect for the environment and for those around us.
MENTI Worldwide
Throughout the years, our wines have been able to express in the finest way the territorial uniqueness of the volcanic soils that feed the Garganega vineyards to the point that we obtained numerous admirers all around the globe. The demand for our wines has increased exponentially, and they are currently found in almost 50 countries around the world.
Stefano Menti
