The surname Fattori (formerly Gastaldi) was used to indicate who worked in the service of large landowners. Around the end of 1800 we became farmers with land owned by my grandfather Antonio and his father Daniele who began to plant vines on the hills of Terrossa. 

They produced sweet wines, filtered with old Dutch filters that still today we keep in the company. They sold them to the taverns of Verona and Vicenza, confirming a farmer’s knowledge that already knew how to be appreciated.

Antonio, my grandfather, born in 1888, was a stubborn man, tireless worker who, upon returning from the Great War, found his vineyards destroyed by phylloxera. He did not give up.

I remember him already old, always barefoot with a tough beard, perpetually digging the vineyards in winter and hoeing them in summer.

At the end of the 70’s I took over, the umpteenth Antonio who, first in a simple family of farmers from the Veneto region, was able to study the world of vineyards and wine.

Since I was a child I waited for the harvest: my role, after school, was the control of the "Garolla" brand destemming machine.

Since then I have never stopped searching, learning, experimenting. Sometimes making mistakes, but always with the aim of combining innovation and tradition in every bottle.

The results achieved are the result of a journey that over time made me know winegrowers around the world, always trying to learn how to "imprison" the original essence of my territory (soil/ climate) in my wines. 

I invested everything I managed to earn in this half century in the cellar and in the acquisition of new vineyards, expanding the company in the territories that most attracted me: Valpolicella, on the splendid plateau of the “Col de la Bastia”, in the DOC Lugana and in the DOC Friuli, without ever forgetting the Soave and Durello of my origins, at ever higher altitudes, on Monte Calvarina.

Even today, after so many years, each new harvest gives me a few nights of anxiety and teaches me new things.

This job never ceases to amaze. The most important thing is to keep trying and experimenting, with tenacity, humility and a little patience.

Now a new generation, the fourth, is approaching and I try, with some jealous reluctance, to pass on to them all that I have learned.