Once you walk through La Mascareta’s front door, and especially if you’re lucky enough to meet its host Mauro Lorenzon, you’d better let go any traditional knowledge. As a matter of fact Lorenzon - who will probably be wearing his inseparable bow tie, a colorful vest and crazy, briar hair - renamed the wine bars “wine bevar”, where “bevar” means “to drink” in Venetian dialect and, in order to recognize a good wine, invented the “Stomachism” theory, by which stomach is considered body’s second brain: the more a wine is digestible, the more it’s pure. Here’s why, during his sommelier classes, he never spat a drop of it.
Histrionic Mauro, who developed a deep passion for wine when, still very young, used to work in his family farm, is the irreplaceable soul of this place, that boasts about a thousand of excellent labels coming from rather known wineries as well as from the smallest producers. In reality, we could quite say that Mauro’s life mission is to collect and taste the best wines in the world: an essential exercise in order to identify the highest quality and “refuse the bad”. This process, or “live wine”, as he likes to call it, implies the use of the senses and is the only way to apprehend how a wine is made.
According to Mauro’s “tutto-stappo” concept, at La Mascareta every wine (literally!) can be tasted by the glass: an idea he’s dreaming to export to some European capital. His selection is particularly focused on non-manipulated, biological and biodynamic productions, otherwise called “good wines beyond the taste”, which became his motto. The bar offers also an assortment of 140 different Gin from all over the world: one of the most recent host’s obsessions.
Opened in 1994, La Mascareta is not only a place for philosophical thoughts, but also a small restaurant, whose menu includes exquisite cicheti, farm-to-table products and some traditional dishes such as sarde in saor, creamed baccalà, fish stew and tortellacci filled with branzino.
As Mauro Lorenzon, who became very popular across Venetian borders, really knows how to enjoy wine and life, expect to spend an amazing night, filled with interesting chats and unstoppable laughs. At the end of the meal you might be invited to have the last drink in his personal privé, a cozy room that faces the canal and is filled with plenty of poems, sketches, pictures and dedications by artists and fans from all over.
Have a Glass in Venice is happy to include this wonderful stop in its Bacari tour!
For more info visit: https://www.ostemaurolorenzon.com
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