Amarone della Valpolicella

I admit it: I enjoy it, I am excited by it, I find it interesting. Yes, Amarone della Valpolicella in all its guises is a terroir-specific, earnestly and honestly made fine wine worthy of all our admiration. Why have I been hiding this love? It was not cool to like Amarone among most of my professional wine colleagues for years, and we never did the work, never looked deeper into the wines; it was a tool for us. Amarone was seemingly a wine from a different era: big, bold, rich and alcoholic. It is a wine that came to fame as boomers began to fall in love with wine—and that wine had a specific profile. As a sommelier, for me Amarone played a vital part of the wine list for sales, but no one ever brought one to the late-night post-work dinner or opined about it as they would a Burgundy, a Barolo or even a Riesling. We never took the time to explore it, we just sold it. Many of us said it was just a wine of process not of place, that once you dried the grapes the terroir was gone. In 2018 I was asked to moderate a seminar on Amarone, and I realized I really did not know anything of substance except that to make Amarone, the grapes needed to be dried for a few months and then wine was made. I decided I needed to dig deeper, to learn more about a wine that many of my guests loved and that I was ignoring. I began to study, to taste and, luckily, visit the region. Everything changed. WE Recommend Cantine di Verona This Amarone della Valpolicella belongs to the Torre del Falasco selection of the Cantina Valpantena, part of Cantine di Verona group. It is obtained from a careful selection of Corvina Veronese, Corvinone and Rondinella grapes, which are left to dry naturally on the vine. Once the traditional fermentation in red is completed, the wine ages for at least 2 years in oak barriques. Ruby red in color tending towards garnet, it shows off an elegant aroma of ripe plum and cocoa. In the mouth it is robust, velvety and harmonious. Perfect in the company of game and noble poultry, it pairs very well with mature cheeses, in particular with pecorino. Buy Now Sponsored The Valpolicella is a unique area that has Lake Garda on its western edge acting as a moderator of temperature; 11 valleys run north to south giving altitude to vineyards and creating distinct microclimates. It has all the important soil types of great wine regions: calcareous, glacial rocks mixed into clay and volcanic. The region’s native grapes, Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Molinara and Oseleta, have grown here for over a millennia and work in concert to tell the story of the terroir, even when dried via the appassimento method, the traditional technique of dehydrating grapes by up to 40%. When I finally paid attention, I saw nuance and differences based on terroir, not just process. High-altitude limestone-based wines are more linear, high toned and nervous with energetic acidity; while wines from the terraced vineyards with more clay in their soils were dense, more powerful and more structured. The detail and precision in the wines are so evident—I was mad at myself for not recognizing the beauty in these wines sooner. Each area of the Valpolicella is expressed uniquely and it made me realize something: It was always me and not the wine that needed adjustment. The wines are expensive but for good reason. Imagine watching 40% of what you produced in a given year literally evaporate, then you need to wait a few years before you sell it. That dedication to detail, to place and process makes these wines worth digging deeper for and worth the effort to better understand the nuance, variation and unique character you’ll find across Amarone. This article originally appeared in the August/September 2023 issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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