How to Find Good Wine
Vero seeks out small production, sustainably made farm-to-glass wines and olive oils from around the world focusing on those not yet available in the US. Many ask us how we find our producers and products. Since we just imported in many new wines, several from producers who have never exported to the US, here are the behind-the-scene stories of how we got to know them.
Our founder, Sheila Donohue at Tomisa organic winery in the Bolognese Hills showing the adventures of touring vineyards in the winter.
Our Founder’s Story
Vero Founder, Sheila Donohue, is born and raised in/around New York City. After working for 15 years in banking and technology in the tristate area, she came across a company in Bologna, Italy doing innovative work in her industry. Oddly, the morning after the tragedy of Sept 11th, she woke up to a call from that company in Italy giving her a job offer. She felt compelled to accept and take on the adventure and challenge of learning a new language, culture and to travel.
While living in Italy, and eventually meeting her husband who has a 100 year old bakery in Bologna, she became fascinated by the rich heritage and diversity of wine and food and how it was intertwined with the Italians’ livelihoods. She also came across so many Italians who make a living from their craft; in particular, these craftsmen and craftswomen differentiate themselves as follows:
Focus on making a high quality artisanal product from the best ingredients available
Obtain ‘raw material’ that is locally grown and made
Stay small
Farm their own land and eat their own products
Naturally are sustainable.
She then studied and got certified as a sommelier in Italy and in her free time continued to seek out more and more artisan wineries in Italy and building more passion and excitement for their products and stories.
Then having a year of sabbatical in 2017, she found out that most the delicious wines and olive oils made from the many artisans she knew in Italy were not available in the US market. She decided to harness the opportunity and start a company that would import these hidden gems into the US and sell them to anyone interested in these delicious products with a sense of place and great stories behind.
How Did We Come to Know Our Producers?
Let’s talk about the wines we just imported in from Italy last month. Most of the wines in the container have never been in the US market and three estate wineries are celebrating their US debut: Febo in Abruzzo, Zamichele in the Lugana appellation and Col del Balt - Sanzovo in Valdobbiadene (‘Prosecco country’).
Davide Febo was studying law at the University of Bologna…
Davide Febo harvesting trebbiano abbruzzese grapes in one of his grandparents’ vineyards in Abruzzo, Italy.
…when Sheila met Davide through some mutual friends. Davide Febo is from Abruzzo, a mountainous and hilly region bordering the Adriatic Sea in Central Italy, to the east of Rome. He had the call to start a winery with his grandparents’ vineyards in Abruzzo so he decided to quit pursuing law to follow his dream.
Wine is in the DNA of his family as his grandparents on both sides , in Spoltore, Pescara and in Chieti, have vineyards. Once Davide heard that Sheila imports wine, he steadfastly followed up with her once he started to make wine, with his first vintage in 2018. Sheila was struck by Davide’s commitment to making wine with utmost care to the environment and the natural course of making fermented ‘grape juice’ following traditions which his grandparents followed, including refurbishing the cement vessels which his grandparents used to make wine years ago. Vero has just imported all of his wines, first time in the US, all native varieties from Abruzzo:
Febo’s Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo which is technically is a rosè but is more like a lightly colored red wine, great chilled
Zamichele’s Wines Sell Word-of-Mouth
Alessandro Zamichele in one of his Turbiana vineyards in the Lugana appellation.
Sheila was at a wine tasting event focused on wines from the Veneto region in 2017 when she met Alessandro Zamichele, who, together with his brother Giuseppe, have been farming and making wines in the Lugana appellation, just south of Lake Garda, west of Verona, all their lives. (Fun fact: way back their family used to just sell grapes, along with eggs, etc, as a full functioning farm. At a certain point, they realized that they would make more money selling the grapes as wine and changed to become a winery.) Upon tasting their delicious white wines, Sheila inquired about importing into the US and was told that they don’t make enough - the wines sell by themselves!
But convinced that wines from the Lugana appellation made from the Turbiana grape would win over Chardonnay lovers looking for an alternative, she kept after Alessandro. To her luck, this year, they decided to start collaborating and finally their wines are available for us to enjoy in the US!
We just imported in:
Really Good Prosecco
Fabio and Carlo Sanzovo in the heart of Prosecco country, Valdobbiadene.
With the popularity of Prosecco, it is hard to find a small producer making high quality artisanal Prosecco which is not yet available in the US. Then in 2019 at a wine fair in Italy, Sheila met Fabio and Carlo Sanzovo whose family has been cultivating and making Prosecco sparkling wines in Valdobbiadene, one of the best areas for Prosecco, since 1950 on the hill called ‘Col del Balt’. She found their wines crisp and fruity, much better made than most Proseccos she has had. Then she was intrigued by a pet-nat style prosecco that they make, called Codolà, made with the ancestral method, which is fermented in the bottle and unfiltered, and which is how prosecco was traditionally made.
Vero just imported in:
We’re delighted to be talking and tasting with the Sanzovo brothers at our next VeroTalk on December 5th. Join us!
So, How to Find Good Wine?
We’ve done the heavy lifting. Spending hours seeking out small ‘guys’ with a knack for crafting great products from their land and finding those not yet in the US, which means that finding their wines (and olive oils) you could be the first to taste them, in your city, in your state or in the US! This is the stuff that typically does not get exported since it is so good and made in such limited quantities.
Relying on Vero as your source for really good, well made and sustainably made wines is how you find good wine.