The Antica Bottega del Vino, the historic Veronese wine mecca, won Wine Spectator’s “Grand Award” for the wine list. It was its nineteenth time in a row. The American magazine’s “Grand Award” is one of the most coveted worldwide honors, so much so that only six restaurants in Italy received the highest recognition this year.
Since 1996, when the Bottega was led by Severino Barzan, the Wine Spectator magazine has paid special attention to the Antica Bottega del Vino’s wine list, considering it one of the most complete and extraordinary in the world. And today things have not changed because the American magazine has been giving it the Grand Award continuously since 2004. The wine list includes around 4700 labels and over 18 thousand bottles, some of which are genuinely historic, rare, and collectible. The World of Fine Wines magazine also awarded the Antica Bottega del Vino the best regional wine list in the world and the top sweet wines in the world in January 2023.
The Antica Bottega del Vino was founded in 1500 during the Republic of Venice and received its current name in 1890 from the Sterzi Brothers, who preserved the distinctive nineteenth-century elegance that we see today. The restaurant, therefore, becomes a monument for the late-nineteenth-century cultural scene and for wine lovers, hosting poets, musicians, writers, and painters such as Boccioni, as well as journalists who found refuge there after a day in the newsroom.
The Rizzo-Grigolo family bought the restaurant in 1957 and focused mostly on catering services until 1987, when Severino Barzan arose on stage and later carried the Bottega concept to New York with Giovanni Pascucci as his partner. In 2010, the Historical Families (Allegrini, Begali, Brigaldara, Masi, Musella, Speri, Tedeschi, Tenuta Sant’Antonio, Tommasi, Venturini, Zenato) acquired the Antica Bottega del Vino, safeguarding Verona’s wine heritage.
“Receiving this kind of recognition from the world’s most renowned wine magazine is always a thrilling moment. And with this award, we are at nineteen straight Grand Awards! We are grateful to Wine Spectator for their thoughtfulness and to Historical Families for their trust. This involves maintaining a high-quality standard and working hard to get the 20th consecutive Grand Award”, says Luca Nicolis, director of Antica Bottega del Vino.
