Italy Spotlight: De Stefani – Hemmingway’s Favourite

Last night I had the distinct pleasure to have dinner with Alessandro De Stefani, managing director and oenologist of De Stefani winery in Veneto, at prestigious Hong Kong Italian restaurant Domani. Other than the fact that Domani has some of the best Italian food in Hong Kong I was, again, pleasantly surprised to taste yet another great set of Italian wines available in Hong Kong.

The De Stefani family originates from Refrontolo, a small village in the hills of Veneto and, originally in 1624 the family name was actually Stefan and is still what the locals amicably call the family to this day. In the late 1800’s Valeriano De Stefani, the winery’s founder realized the potential of the soils in the area for making great wine and the family began a winemaking tradition that still holds true to this day.

Alessandro is the fourth generation of winemakers in the family and continues to make quality wines from both local and international grape varieties believing that the use of both is essential in making great wines these days. After joining his father in the winery in 1990 he realised his passion for making wines with no herbicides or chemical fertilizers and started making wines through natural cellar vinification methods – without additives and sulphides.

Alessandro makes a yearly pilgrimage to Hong Kong to check on the market, visit his clients and importer here and of the city he says: “It’s always great being in Hong Kong. I come here every year and this place really is the wine hub of Asia. It’s an exciting and dynamic city and very developed when it comes to wine”.

Talking to diners he explained how the wines became one of the favourites of Earnest Hemmingway. In the First World War in 1918, Hemmingway (before he became a writer) was stationed in Italy and fought alongside the Italian soldiers to ward off the invading Austrian army. He was subsequently injured and found himself being treated in the winery for his wounds. It was here that he found his love and passion for Italian wines and, in particular, De Stefani wines.

The wines themselves are sophisticated and exceptionally approachable. There is a degree of complexity, but not too much (as I like!) and over time the wines develop nicely in the glass. They are smooth and easy drinking, The Prosecco was delightful, crisp and refreshing and a great start to any dinner or just a great end to a long hard day at work, as too the Pinot Grigio which was simple, but clean and feminine.

The reds are a eclectic blend of international and local grape varieties as over dinner we had the Soler 2009 – a blend of Marzemino, Refosco, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon – the Kreda 2006 (which was probably my favourite wine of the night, albeit not their best wine). The Kreda is a 100% Refosco and a very interesting wine overall. 

We closed off the dinner with a selection of Italian cheeses paired with the De Stefani flagship wine, the Stefen 1624 (named in homage to their original family name) which is a 100% Marzemino – a grape variety lauded by Mozart in his opera Don Giovanni. A lovely wine it was with good complexity and paired nicely with the fantastic cheese on offer.

Overall, it was a great wine and dine experience and, as always, great to try some new wines. If this is a sign of things to come in the year, 2013 is going to be a great year. Feedback from readers here in Hong Kong was that they wanted more on Italian wines in 2013 and this is a great start.

For De Stefani wines and more information contact their exclusive importer here in Hong Kong, Seapower Trading Co. You can contact their marketing department for information on brian.chung@seapower.hk or for sales information their sales department on joey.yue@seapower.hk