On the Cusp of Evolution: Amarone and Valpolicella 

BY ERIC GUIDO | APRIL 14, 2022

You just came home after a long day of work with dinner on your mind while heading down to the cellar to grab the perfect bottle for the evening. As you peruse the shelves, you find yourself arriving at your collection of wines from Valpolicella. For a moment, you pause and think, will the entry-level Valpolicella be a bit too simple and fruity for our meal? What exactly should I expect from that Valpolicella Superiore? Is this Ripasso too rich, like a baby Amarone? Speaking of Amarone–Oh no, that definitely won’t work. And then you move on, and that Valpolicella section continues to grow dusty. Have you experienced this? I know I have.

This is the perception of the red wines from Valpolicella. Producers have been aware of it for some time. The work that’s been done over the course of many years is really starting to show in the wines. Today, there is a much larger selection of Amarone that falls into a savory category, with pronounced minerality and acidity, as well as much lower residual sugar and alcohol. However, for every one of these balanced efforts, there is still an ocean of slick and syrupy wines that are much better left for the cheese course, or even the occasional cigar for that matter. In addition, it takes time to convince an experienced wine drinker that it’s okay to bring an Amarone to the dinner table. How do you undo decades of marketing centered around your top wine being one of meditation and hedonistic pleasure best saved for the dessert course?

The Marcellise Valley from the vineyards of Marion.

A Valpolicella Paradigm Shift

This complex issue has gotten many of the producers of Valpolicella thinking of ways that they can bring consumers back to their region and prove that they can produce world-class wines for modern palates. 

The first big step has been the introduction of the IGT Veronese category; instead of relying on international varieties, looking at what can be accomplished with the native varieties of the region. The traditional blend of Valpolicella DOC wines contains a mix (from 45% to 95% of the blend) of Corvina, or the larger-berried Corvinone (5% to 30% of the blend), Rondinella, and up to 10% (but not obligatory of Molinara, Croatina, Negrara and/or Dindarella. However, many producers have realized that the most important and characterful grapes from this mix are Corvina and Corvinone, and that, especially in the case of Corvina, they are fully capable of producing excellent mono-varietal wines. Even from the perspective of Amarone, producers like Allegrini, Brigaldara, Ca' La Bionda, Marion and Tommasi have pushed their use of these two varieties to the maximum allowed by regulations. With each vintage, the number of varietal Corvinas that can be found through Valpolicella, labeled as IGT, grows bigger. The best part is that most producers are creating these wines without the use of appassimento (air-drying of the grapes to reduce water and increase sugar and concentration), and instead relying on the quality of the fruit and the terroir that it comes from. A great example of this is the La Grola vineyard, a cliff-like peak that levels off as a plateau at about 300 meters and overlooks Lake Garda in the easternmost part of the Valpolicella Classica region. This well-ventilated site was planted in 1979 in poor soils with high limestone content. The old Corvina vines that reside there now aren’t used for an Amarone; they instead fuel Allegrini’s IGT La Poja. This brings to light another important trend in Valpolicella, and that’s the realization of the importance of Crus. The only unfortunate factor to consider in this new trend is the lack of oversight and setting of higher standards that would come with creating an official DOC that would allow for varietal Corvina or Corvinone. While the extremely open-ended IGT category allows producers to experiment freely, it also doesn't guarantee any level of quality. Sadly, there seems to be no unified push from the producers in Valpolicella to make this happen. 

Grapes for Recioto naturally air-drying at the Quintarelli winery.

The second way that Valpolicella producers are working to shine a new light on the region mixes the respect of the traditional blending of grapes, while creating a wine of more importance. This is being accomplished through the category of Valpolicella Superiore, and from what I’ve tasted, it’s something to be excited about. The DOC regulations leave this as a very open-ended category in the region, which requires the same blend of grapes as Amarone, and cites that the fruit should be coming from the “best locations” (not quite a legitimate parameter), that alcohol should reach at least 12%, and that the wine must be refined in the winery for at least one year before release. What it doesn’t say is that they require appassimento; and while many producers use appassimento to bolster their Valpolicella Superiore, there’s a growing movement toward depending solely on the source and the fruit it can produce. One of the leaders in this new trend are brothers Alessandro and Nicola Castellani of Ca' La Bionda. On my recent visit to the region, I couldn’t help but notice their names coming up over and over again in conversations. The inspiration behind their wines comes from Burgundy and Barolo, which you understand the moment you taste them.

One of the most interesting experiences from my trip happened to be a current-release 2010 Valpolicella Classico Superiore that had spent ten years maturing in a 30-hectoliter oak cask, and that was remarkably fresh yet deep and balanced. This wine also hails from a single-vineyard, or Cru, named Casalvegri, where the vines grow in rocky clay and limestone soils between 150 to 300 meters in elevation. There was a time when the best fruit of this vineyard was selected for the house Amarone, but today, it all goes into their portfolio of Valpolicella Superiore. Roccolo Grassi, one of the masters of Valpolicella Superiore, is another winemaker who has just released a new Cru expression from his new Valfresca vineyard - it seems as if I can actually taste the calcareous soils while sipping this wine.