Deliver Us From Ordinary Wine: Inside Italy’s Heavy Metal Winery
- Randall Wilburn
- 7 days ago
- 8 min read
In the rolling hills of Marche, a region in central Italy more often associated with quiet countryside and centuries-old winemaking tradition, something unusual is happening. Daniele Santori — lifelong metalhead, vocalist, and now winemaker — has built a winery that refuses to play by the rules. The wines are named after hell, and the Greek afterlife. The labels are drawn by a comic artist. And the philosophy is as uncompromising as old school black metal.
Welcome to Heavy Metal Winery
A Family Rooted in the Land
To understand Heavy Metal Winery, you first have to understand where Daniele Santori comes from — and that story begins not with metal, but with soil.
The Santori family's relationship with wine stretches back to the 1960s, when their viticultural history began with the Tenuta di Lugnano in Teverina, an estate in Umbria that produced table wines and regional bottlings. That earlier chapter eventually gave way to something new: a return to the vine, this time in the Macerata hills of Marche, where Daniele helped steer the family back toward vineyard work — first under the Cantina Santori name, then under the identity that endures today as Collemara.
Collemara is a family winery based at Villa San Filippo di Monte San Giusto, and its name carries both geographic and personal meaning. "Colle" refers to a hill; "mara" honors Mara Santori, the founder described as the estate's emotional center. Set on a 50-hectare hill with roughly 12 hectares of vineyards, Collemara operates on a small scale, prioritizing estate-grown grapes and careful production over volume. Its portfolio is built around Marche identity: Ribona (also known as Maceratino), a native white grape tied to the Colli Maceratesi area; Piceno red; Merlot; and Erebo, a structured Marche Rosso / Colli Maceratesi Riserva-style bottling made from Montepulciano, Cabernet, Sangiovese, and Merlot.
Collemara and Heavy Metal Winery are two sides of the same family story — one rooted in regional tradition and native grapes, the other channeling Daniele's life in metal into something entirely its own. Together, they show the full range of a man whose identity spans vineyard rows and concert stages.
The Vocalist Who Became a Winemaker
Before Daniele Santori was pressing Cabernet Sauvignon in Corridonia, he was screaming into a microphone in Ancona.
In 1999, Santori co-founded The Dogma, a symphonic gothic and power metal band from Ancona, Marche. The lineup included guitarist Cosimo Binetti, keyboardist Stefano Smeriglio, bassist Steve Vawamas, and drummer Giuseppe Chirico. Their sound sat at a crossroads rarely traveled on the Italian metal map: heavier than most European power metal, darker than the fantasy-and-dragons crowd, and more theatrical than standard heavy metal fare. Gothic atmosphere, melancholy hooks, symphonic keyboards, and Santori's commanding dramatic vocals gave the band a sound that leaned closer to gothic noir than anything with a sword in the artwork.
The Dogma's first release, the 2002 demo Symphonies of Love and Hate, announced that sensibility clearly. Four years later came their real breakthrough: the debut full-length Black Roses, released in 2006 through Drakkar Records. The album introduced the band to a wider European audience with tracks like "Black Roses," "Wicked Angels," "Queen of the Damned," "Devil's Bride," and "Maryann" — songs built on mood, heavy riffing, and Santori's vocal presence rather than pure technical velocity.
They followed with A Good Day to Die in 2007, sharpening the formula with tracks including "In the Name of Rock," "She Falls on the Grave," "Autumn Tears," and "Back from Hell." The quick turnaround suggested a band with momentum, and The Dogma's most visible period saw them touring Europe on a circuit of melodic and theatrical metal — including a run alongside Finnish monster-rock act Lordi, a natural pairing of two bands where metal, theatricality, and dark visual identity converged.
Their third album, Black Widow, arrived in 2010 through Drakkar Entertainment. It pushed harder into rock-driven hooks and a sleazier edge alongside the gothic-power foundation, with songs like "Black Widow," "Dirty Dark Diane," "Sister Pain," "All Alone," and "Lost Forevermore." The band's lineup evolved over the years — later members included Giacomo Astorri on bass and Marco Bianchella on drums — though Santori remained the consistent voice at the center.
Daniele Santori’s latest musical outlet, We Are Legion, continues the dark theatrical thread that runs from his years fronting The Dogma into his wine-and-metal work with Heavy Metal Winery. In this project, Santori takes on the moniker DANNAR, presenting himself less as a conventional frontman and more as a character inside a horror-tinged heavy metal universe. The band’s own social presence describes DANNAR as a collector of heavy-metal vinyl, a horror-movie obsessive, and a wine drinker — details that neatly connect Santori’s three creative worlds: metal, cinema ( big horror fan), and Marche wine culture.
The Dogma and We are Legion matter to the Heavy Metal Winery story for reasons beyond biography. Santori did not arrive at winemaking from a casual fascination with branding. He arrived as a vocalist, lyricist, and performer already embedded in the metal world — someone for whom the drama, darkness, and commitment that defined The Dogma were not poses but a genuine way of moving through life. The same instincts that shaped the band later resurfaced in bottles, labels, and grape varieties.
A Winery Born from Frustration — and Passion
Santori makes no secret of the economics that make winemaking a difficult business. Unlike craft beer, which can be produced multiple times in a single year, wine is made only once annually — one shot per harvest to get it right. Yet when a glass of wine sits next to a glass of beer at a bar, the price is often comparable. For a producer who has poured a year of labor into each bottle, that equation stings.
That frustration, rather than diminishing his commitment, seems to have sharpened it. If wine was going to demand sacrifice, it was at least going to say something. As Santori puts it: "I wanted to do something that screams Heavy Metal."
The winery, formally registered as Azienda Agricola Santori Mara, is based at C.da Ripalta 6, 62014 Corridonia, in the province of Macerata (MC), Marche. The same clay-rich argillaceous soils and Mediterranean climate that underpin some of Italy's most celebrated wines now carry an entirely different aesthetic — one shaped by 44 Iron Maiden concerts, decades of thrash and black metal, and years spent fronting a gothic power metal band on European stages.
Santori started listening to metal in 1993, drawn to the classic 80s sound that laid the genre's foundation — Dio, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Judas Priest, Satyricon, Warlord. His devotion has never wavered: as recently as June 17, 2026, he was at Stadio San Siro (Stadio Giuseppe Meazza) in Milan for his 44th Iron Maiden show. The year before, he caught Maiden in both Croatia and Italy, and made the trip to Belgium's Graspop Metal Meeting, where King Diamond and Judas Priest also performed.
The Label: A Metalhead in Ink
Every Heavy Metal Winery bottle features the same striking image: a bald, scowling figure rendered in bold lines, wearing a silver badge stamped with the letters M and W. The artwork was created by a female friend of Santori's — a comics artist and illustrator — who translated his vision into something that looks simultaneously like a concert T-shirt and a wine label. It is the kind of design that grabs you from across a room.
The branding is deliberate and coherent. This is not a novelty product slapping skulls on bottles for shock value. The connection between the music and the wine runs deeper than aesthetics — each wine in the lineup is conceptually paired with a specific corner of the metal universe.
The Wines
Cabernhell (Red)
The name says everything: Cabernet meets Hell. This is Santori's red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese grown on argillaceous plots and trained using the Guyot method. The wine is deep purple-red in the glass, with red fruit on the nose and sweet, balanced tannins on the palate — the kind of structured Mediterranean red that can anchor a meal.
Vinification involves a 15-day maceration at 26°C, followed by nine months of maturation in stainless steel and six months of bottle fining, bringing it to 13% ABV. Best served at 18°C, it pairs with aperitifs, roasts, meat dishes, and pasta with tomato-based sauces.
The music that inspired it sits squarely in the fire zone: classic metal, death metal, the high-energy aggression of Testament, Overkill, Iron Maiden, Metal Church. Flames are the word Santori uses. This is a wine for turning up the volume.
Hellysium (White)
The name is a portmanteau of "hell" and "Elysium" — the ancient Greek paradise of the afterlife. Hellysium is a 100% Pecorino white wine, a grape variety native to central Italy that has seen a surge of international recognition in recent years. Straw-colored to golden in the glass, it is fresh and strong on the palate, harmonious, fruity, and fragrant — a wine built for outdoor drinking.
Vinification is temperature-controlled at 26°C, with seven months in stainless steel and three months of bottle fining, landing at 13.5% ABV. Serve it at 10°C alongside fish, pasta with white sauces, or crepes.
Musically, Hellysium maps to Classic Metal and Progressive Metal — the more melodic, expansive end of the genre. Santori describes it as easy-going on the palate and perfect for summer festivals. It is the wine you bring to an outdoor stage.
Hypnos
The lineup also includes Hypnos — named for the Greek god of sleep and described as hypnotic, dry and sweet. Santori envisions it as the record-listening wine: something you open on the couch with friends, letting the evening unspool. Its musical pairing is second-wave black metal and exploratory prog — Satyricon and Rush's landmark album 2112 are both touchstones Santori names. Hypnos is for the long listen.
Two Brands, One Story
It would be easy to look at Heavy Metal Winery and Collemara as separate projects living separate lives — one for the metal crowd, one for the wine traditionalists. But that would miss the point. Both brands emerge from the same Santori family, the same Macerata hills, and the same deep commitment to place. Collemara tends the family's roots, working native grapes like Ribona and building wines that speak to Marche's inland agricultural identity. Heavy Metal Winery pulls a different audience toward that same territory — through imagery and naming that speak the language of metal, not terroir notes.
Daniele Santori has spent his adult life moving between these two worlds: performing as a vocalist in The Dogma, tending vines in Corridonia, watching Iron Maiden from the front row. Heavy Metal Winery is where those threads finally converge. The vineyards are Italian and the farming is traditional, but the sensibility is entirely his own — shaped by three decades of living inside metal culture, not just consuming it.
Daniele Santori has spent his adult life moving between these two worlds: performing as a vocalist in The Dogma, tending vines in Marche, head banging to Iron Maiden in stadiums across Europe. Heavy Metal Winery is where those threads finally converge. The vineyards are Italian and the farming is traditional, but the sensibility is entirely his own — shaped by three decades of living inside metal culture, not just consuming it.
Heavy Metal Winery is a reminder that metal culture often travels in unexpected ways. Sometimes it moves from rehearsal rooms to European tours. Sometimes it moves from albums to vineyards. In the case of Daniele Santori, it did both — and the bottles to prove it are sitting somewhere in the Macerata hills, waiting to be opened.
Heavy metal Winery : Via Bore Chienti 62015 Villa San Filippo - Monte San Giusto (MC) Italy
Mobile : +39 327 2366724
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