Home – Matteo Rigoni

The Winemaker

Stories always start in a special place. Mine started right here, in Grancona, nestled in the Berici Hills (Colli Berici), between a house made of stones and a little vineyard framed by the woods around here, a forest of little oak and hornbeam trees. My grandparents spent there summers here and at that time it was, for me, the land of scents: the smells of old wood, of our own honey-jars which were stored in cupboards kept closed and safe from our mini-honey-hungry-hands, and the smell of green – which penetrated everything including the enormous walls.

It’s a story born from memories but which quietly and fluidly transformed into a desire, a goal and a project.

The Cellar

At the heart of the Estate is the cellar, in Italian “La Cantina”.

Only a few-minute-walk is needed to bring the hand-harvested cases directly to the cellar where the grapes are de-stemmed and fall directly into the hand-made amphora, each one holding around 800 litres.

The House

The house and current home of the “Cantina Matteo Rigoni” was built in 1608 by Cleric Giovanni Porto, who was of a very important noble family from Vicenza who had many palaces and properties in Vicenza’s centre.

It was immediately destined to host a congregation of Margheritoni monks who were inspired by the reformed teachings of the Venerable Antonio Pagani, a singular religious figure with a vocation for asceticism and hermitage as well as the foundation of minor orders.

Our wines produced entirely on our own estate

Matteo Rigoni

Since 2019 I have a cellar that is all mine, created piece by piece within the walls of my home. Many things have changed since the first wine I produced. Tastes, the way I enjoy it and especially the conception and production of wine itself. The land, the plant, the ecosystem, the exposition, the grapes and the must have become the centre of a new idea of winemaking. Having a small production I have the opportunity to cure and care for these things in a special way with a lot of attention, doing everything by hand, very carefully, each step of the way.

I bought two terracotta amphoras to give them a try, soon I was sure that they were exactly what I needed: to vinify and then age the wine in these 750L handcrafted works of art. I put my hands into the mass to feel what I could already hear, see and smell. I wanted to get a close-up sense of the changing density and temperature. Now, I’ve acquired a habit of putting my ear against the terracotta to hear the whispering of the tiny bubbles. I can sense the spirit of the year’s wine: strong, weak, tumultuous, slow, fast… always different. Different grapes, different sun – each wine a genesis of all of its elements. This is my way. Now my two amphoras have multiplied to six and my idea of wine no longer follows a set of ideals but rather it conforms to my land, my work and especially to the forces of the terroir.

Our original brand

Rossorigoni

In 2011 when I began to make wine I had precise ideas of taste and style. At this point I didn’t have a winemaking cellar at home and so I worked out of other ones. I worked by following the directions that until that point were influenced by my inspirations and passion.

I tried to get as close as i could to a final product that I want to find within my wines. I used selected yeasts to initiate the fermentation process and a few enological products. Then back home I aged the wine in cement tanks and a few wooden barrels. The red: a Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend. The white: Sauvignon Blanc.

From 2011 until 2019 the classic Rossorigoni wines evolved, getting closer and closer to the stylistic idea the sparked the first flames.