Maculan Dindarello Bianco Passito Veneto IGT

Healthy and selected grapes are dried for one month, then fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Once bottled the wine rests for three months before release.

For most people outside the region, Maculan is Breganze. Stretching between the Alpine foothills and the Roman town of Vicenza, the Breganze vineyards can easily yield anonymous wines, but such is Fausto Maculan’s determination to transcend the norm that he manages to wring every last drop of character from his carefully grown grapes, be they local specialities like Vespaiola or international varieties that he has imported and planted. While the dessert wines are Maculan’s most famous export, the rest of the range should not be overlooked: both dry whites and reds offer fresh, vibrant varietal expressions, as well as a unique take on the Veneto style.

Fausto Maculan has always lived wine, he was delivered in the very space that is his office today. Having always had a bit of the salesman about him he was out aged 13 selling wine during the school holidays (of course, he needed a driver as he wasn’t old enough). Aged 14 he was thrown into enology studies. He came to the winery at a difficult time in Italy’s winemaking history – where quantity was favoured over quality and so his decision not to follow this, to improve quality, work with different grape varieties was a bold one, but it is of course this that put Maculan on the map.

Today the business is run by three generations, Fausto, his daughter Angela, and her daughter Mariavittoria who is assistant winemaker.