Podere Pradarolo

Welcome to the wonderful wines of Claudia and Alberto Carretti from Podere Pradarolo in Emilia-Romagna, on the beautiful hills Southwest of Parma (250-500m). They purchased the farm in 1971 and converted it to produce wines in 1989. They make very specific farming and winemaking choices: production of organic grapes treated with nothing but small amounts of copper sulphur, ancient winemaking by recovering extremely long macerations for both reds and whites, and use of wild yeasts to obtain healthy wines, long-lasting, natural, with ancient flavors that speak of their territory.

Their values are best expressed in their own words:

We seek to recover and maintain alive the values and ethics of human work, to save the existence of a rich cultural identity and unfortunately deteriorated rapidly over the decades after the second world war. Linking the product to the territory is a concept that occurs frequently in the farmed food promotional area. The Pradarolo farm tries to put this theory into practice with a simple approach, clear and rigorous: our products must be real, wholesome, digestible, original and exciting, in one word “good” in every sense of the word. Our hospitality must reflect the warmth of the Italian family tradition. Our hope is that through the result of our work the charm and emotions we live daily are perceived.

With the same spirit we dealt with the naming of the wines. We focused on the unique relationship that ties our wines to our side of the valley microterritory. After a toponymy research, with the collaboration of Professor Marisa Castelli we discovered the Serravalle’s antique names, which became the name of the wine: Velius – from the Latin denomination – for a Rosso Asciutto wine and Vej of medieval origin for the Bianco Antico wine.