Tommasi launches new De Buris luxury wine brand

De Buris is a new luxury wine brand and hospitality project from the Tommasi family. It will include a high-end Amarone wine and a historic villa, that will be completely restored into a luxury hospitality center with the aim to promote the historical and cultural heritage of the Valpolicella area.

“De Buris is not just a product, it’s a project,” said Pierangelo Tommasi at the launch in Veneto on 12th October.

“We didn’t want to make a new high-end Tommasi Amarone. We wanted to take the chance to build an entirely new luxury venture.”

In 2000, the Tommasi family acquired Villa De Buris (pictured top), the oldest villa in the Valpolicella area, and a ten-hectare vineyard La Groletta.

“We purchased the two properties for different reasons. Producing wine from the La Groletta vineyard had been our dream for a long time. The villa, however, was an investment we decided to make for other reasons, but just a few months later we started thinking that we should combine our best vineyard with this ancient villa and create a new project.”

Out of the ten hectares of vineyards at La Groletta, only a 1.9-hectare plot, the highest part of the vineyard, is dedicated to the production of De Buris Amarone Riserva.

The vineyard’s 300-meter elevation, long hours of sunlight and a cooling breeze from the Lake Garda makes La Groletta an ideal place to produce top-quality Amarone, according to Tommasi.

De Buris Amarone Riserva 2008 – a blend of Corvina (62%), Corvinone (25%), Oseleta (8%), and Rondinella (5%) – is the first release, with 2009 also in the pipeline.

The Amarone Riserva will be the only wine produced under the De Buris brand.

Construction of a new vinification cellar at Villa De Buris is scheduled to start sometime next year. By the end of 2023, the entire villa should be fully restored.

There are also plans to create a foundation aimed for safeguarding local history, art, and cultural heritage as well as support research in viticulture and winemaking.