2018 Tenuta Santa Maria Pragal Rosso IGT Verona Italy 750 ml

When you find a plush, 93-point Italian red blend selling for less than $4 a glass, you pounce, because bottles boasting that kind of value don’t come around often. Today, we present you with the Italian standout that has been delivering that value year after year—in its Wine Access debut.

Marrying tried-and-true French mainstays with native Italian grape varieties is what makes this red from the legendary Bertani family a superstar. At Tenuta Santa Maria, their sixth-generation winemaker channels 500 years of skill into a marvelous, value-priced red. 

This clever combination of international and local grape varieties lends the 2018 Pragal a dizzying array of complexity—the kind we’re used to seeing in $50 Super Tuscans and innovative blends like Quintarelli, Tommasi, and Dal Forno. The Pragal shows cedar smoke and wild herbs from the Syrah; mulberries and black cherries from the Merlot; and violets, potpourri, and black earth from the Corvina that gives the wine its Northern Italian edge. James Suckling was especially drawn to the “silky tannins” and “racy, refined finish,” awarding this bargain red a rare 93 points. We were blown away, too—especially when we realized the price (at $18.00 a bottle) wasn’t a typo.  

Part of the extreme value here is a secret tucked in Tenuta Santa Maria’s name, which obscures the iconic family behind this wine. Made by the Bertrani family, the expertise behind this label goes back half a millennium—the Bertanis set up their winery before Italy was even a country. 

But by 2011, patriarch Gaetano Bertani wanted to focus on his family’s legendary vineyards—rather than managing a multinational wine corporation—and sold the company, including the name it shared with his family. Ever the cunning businessman, he crucially did not sell the vineyards that had made the best wines of his family for generations. In this way, Gaetano was able to strike out on his own and make a fresh start at producing gorgeous wines that honor the history of his family and the region.

Today, with the pressures of international supply and demand cycles removed, the sixth generation of Bertanis use fruit from their holdings in Negrar and Val d’Illasi (primo real estate in Valpolicella) to craft one of the region’s most interesting wines. Merlot and Syrah are present at 20% each, while the remaining 60% is Corvina that is harvested late in October and then dried for a month before fermentation, in the rich and complex style of Amarone. 

This level of complexity and elegance rarely surfaces at prices like these, so stock up now for uninterrupted enjoyment for the next five years.