What is Amarone?

Amarone della Valpolicella is one of the most sought-after Italian red wines. Powerful, rich, very broad in taste and slightly sweet. Amarone has been made from dried grapes since the 1950s. They are special wines. But because the number of bottles of Amarone that are bottled annually has increased rapidly in recent years, the name Amarone on the label no longer guarantees high quality in all cases.

Until half a century ago, the winegrowers from Valpolicella in the northern Italian region of Veneto only made dry red wine and sweet Recioto della Valpolicella. The recioto was sweet because it did not ferment completely. It was not until the 1950s that the winemakers from Valpolicella discovered that the natural yeasts on their grapes were able to ferment dried grapes. With that, Amarone was born. Amarone is made by first drying the grapes slightly and then pressing and fermenting the very sweet remaining juice.

A lot has changed since then. Amarone is still made mainly from Corvina, Corvinone, Molinara and some juice from the Rondinella grape. The method of drying has been modernized considerably. In the past, this was done on straw mats. Nowadays, the grapes are placed in trays on a pallet, hop into a modern drying room. This is much faster and the chance of rot and bruising is therefore much smaller.

The grapes lose about half of their moisture in the drying cell and that makes the juice rich and intense. The fermentation only starts slowly and requires the necessary attention from the winemaker. With mediocre Amarone's this has often (already) gone wrong. In the past, Amarone matured in large oak barrels. Nowadays, more and more winemakers are opting for small barriques and that further improves the quality.

Due to the popularity of Amarone, the volume has increased spectacularly in recent decades. More and more winemakers from Valpolicella have dollar signs in their eyes. They are selecting an increasingly large part of their harvest for this luxurious delicacy. So distrust 'spectacular Amarone offers' on the internet because they rarely come from the better producers in the region. Then you are better off choosing a good Ripasso. Ripasso is made from Valpolicella wine, which is re-fermented with the crushed skins of Amarone and added yeast and sugar. It is similar to Amarone but is considerably fairer.