Summary
Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine is one of the best-known wine houses in Verona – and at the same time one of Italy's most headstrong. Founded in 1925 by the Pasqua brothers, the business is run today by the third generation and combines the classic appellations of the Veneto – Amarone della Valpolicella, Valpolicella Ripasso, Soave, Lugana and Bardolino – with a deliberately unconventional signature. Icons such as the Mai Dire Mai Amarone, the 11 Minutes rosé and the white wine Hey French have earned the house the nickname the House of the Unconventional. In 2025 Pasqua celebrated its hundredth anniversary.
History
The story begins in 1925, when the Pasqua brothers founded a wine house in Verona. Over the decades the small operation grew into a producer that made the classic wines of the Verona hinterland known far beyond Italy. As early as the 1940s the family acquired vineyards in Mizzole and San Felice on the eastern edge of Valpolicella – the very parcels that would later form the core of its own estate.
In the 1980s these became the Cecilia Beretta estate, named after the daughter of Count Giuseppe Beretta, a seventeenth-century agronomist and poet. This is where Pasqua concentrates its most ambitious single-site wines to this day.
The most recent turning point came with the generational handover: since 2014 the third generation around Riccardo Pasqua has shaped the direction of the house. Under their leadership turnover has roughly doubled within a decade, the export share stands at around 90 percent, and Pasqua is present in more than 70 markets. For the centenary in 2025 the family published the illustrated volume Ode to the Future with Rizzoli – a fitting symbol for a house that consciously thinks its tradition forwards.
Location & Terroir
The company is based in San Felice Extra on the eastern edge of Verona, where the hills of Valpolicella give way to the plain. The estate's own vineyards at Cecilia Beretta stretch across the slopes around Mizzole and San Felice in the eastern part of the Valpolicella area.
Decisive here are calcareous soils over volcanic subsoil as well as the elevation of the hills, which brings cool nights and therefore freshness and aromatic definition to the grapes. Nearby Lake Garda and the sheltering barrier of the Lessini mountains to the north provide a mild, balanced climate – the basis for the slow, healthy ripening that makes the drying of grapes for Amarone possible in the first place.
The estate's own fruit is complemented by grapes from other areas of the Veneto and northern Italy – from Soave with its volcanic soils, from Lugana on the southern shore of Lake Garda and from Bardolino.
Style & Philosophy
Pasqua deliberately moves between two poles. On one side stands the classic Veronese repertoire: appassimento, the months-long drying of grapes on racks or in crates, from which the dense, velvety Amarone emerges; the ripasso method, in which a Valpolicella is fermented a second time on the pomace of the Amarone; and fresh, clear white wines from Garganega and Trebbiano di Lugana.
On the other side stands the ambition to break with convention. That shows in names and labels – designed by artists, provocative, often with a wink – as well as in how the wines are made: shorter macerations, more precise freshness, less weight than the region was used to. Since 2018 the family has also invested systematically in art projects and exhibitions, a commitment to linking wine, city and culture.
Notable Sites & Wines
The range divides into the classic appellations and the so-called icons:
- Mai Dire Mai – the estate's top Amarone, from selected grapes and long ageing
- Famiglia Pasqua – Amarone della Valpolicella as the flagship of the family line
- 11 Minutes – a Veneto rosé whose name alludes to the very short maceration time
- Hey French, You Could Have Made This But You Didn't – probably Italy's most provocative white wine
- Terre di Cariano and Mizzole – single-site wines from the Cecilia Beretta estate in Valpolicella
- Passione Sentimento – the appassimento red that made Pasqua internationally known
Alongside these come Soave, Lugana, Bardolino, Valpolicella Classico and Ripasso in considerable breadth.
Awards
Pasqua has been collecting top marks in the international trade press for years. Wine Enthusiast named the house Innovator of the Year in 2023. The Mai Dire Mai Amarone received a gold medal with 96 points at Decanter, and the estate's wines have repeatedly been awarded Tre Bicchieri by Gambero Rosso. High scores from James Suckling, Wine Advocate and other critics round off the picture. In its anniversary year 2025 Pasqua also received an international award as part of Vinitaly in Verona.