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Allegrini

Allegrini is a reference-point producer for fine Amarone. The Allegrini family has played an important role in local Veronese society for hundreds of years going back to the mid-sixteenth century. The property's modern history was built by Giovanni Allegrini, who purchased a number of top vineyards and made many of the estate's first important wines. Today, the winery is run by Giovanni's children Franco and Marilisa. A third sibling, Walter, passed away tragically in 2003.

The winery is located in Fumane, right in the heart of the Valpolicella Classica zone just outside Verona. It is in the Valpolicella Classica region that some of Italy's most distinctive reds can be found; including Valpolicella, Amarone and Recioto. Winemaking in this part of Italy is inextricably linked to appassimento, in which grapes are dried anywhere from several weeks to several months before being vinified, a technique that dates back to Roman times.

Amarone remains a challenging wine for consumers to understand. Many of the better known producers – including Quintarelli, Dal Forno, Bussola and Zenato among them – make big, extroverted Amarones that can be overpowering for their sheer density and alcohol. As great as the best of those wines are, finding the right occasion to open a bottle is not always easy. Furthermore, only a handful of producers have a track record that makes it possible to glean insights into how Amarone ages, adding to the uncertainty consumers face. Allegrini has long focused on making Amarones that are accessible and food-friendly. These are decidedly understated wines that seek elegance and restraint over sheer power. Accordingly, heft, concentration and richness take a backseat to approachability and a style that is much closer to other red wines.

Corvina is the main grape in Amarone and accounts for 75-80% of the final blend, while Rondinella, Oseleta and Molinara account for 20-25%, depending on the vintage. Today the harvest takes place in September, although all of the wines in this tasting from vintages 1988-1995 were made from fruit picked in October. Warmer growing seasons, newer, earlier-ripening clones and a general desire to pick earlier in order to preserve freshness and avoid overly alcoholic wines are all factors that contribute to today's earlier harvest times. Freshly picked grapes are placed into well-ventilated plastic boxes to dry for about four months, a process known as appassimento, which serves to concentrate the aromas, flavors and sugars. During this time, grapes lose anywhere from 40-50% of their weight. Appassimento was originally conceived several thousand years ago to confer more richness and body to the grapes at time when obtaining full ripeness in the vineyard was much more difficult due to the cold weather in this stretch of northern Italy and the pergola-style training that remains typical of older vineyards.

Clearly appassimento introduces an element of variability in Amarone (rot is always a risk) that is not present in the production of the vast majority of other red wines, as temperature and humidity can vary quite a bit from the time the fruit is harvested until it is vinified. In 1998 Allegrini built a massive drying facility that allows for full control of the elements during the four months the fruit lays in crates prior to vinification. Corvina, the main variety in Amarone, is a grape with large, juicy berries that has a tendency to rot, which introduces oxidative aromas and flavors that aren't part of the Allegrini house style. Rot migrates into the grapes from the stems, so Allegrini places special attention on keeping the stems healthy during the first five days of the drying process, which is the most critical part of appassimento period. From there, the grapes are kept in a controlled environment until the following January, when the fruit is pressed. One of the biggest benefits of the drying center is it gives the estate the ability to make Amarone in vintages where weather conditions in the past might have been too adverse to overcome.

Early vintages at Allegrini were vinified along fairly traditional lines, with long macerations on the skins that typically lasted 45 days, followed by aging in large 80-hectoliter casks. French oak barrels were introduced in part in the late 1980s. By the mid-1990s the estate had settled on the medium-toast 350 and 500-liter French oak barrels used today. The ability to dry the grapes in a controlled environment and bring them into the fermentation tanks already warm (rather than cold, as was the case when the fruit was dried conventionally) resulted in shorter fermentation and maceration times of around 15 days. It is interesting to note that all of the pre-1995 vintages in this tasting all have acidities above 6 grams per liter, while later vintages are all below 6 grams per liter. This, along with the more traditional approach to winemaking, may explain why the older vintages are still so remarkably fresh. It seems perfectly reasonable to wonder if today's wines will age as gracefully as the best vintages of the past. So far, the evidence suggests that today's Amarones are best enjoyed on the young side.

From Allegrini Amarone: 1982 – 2004 (Apr 2010) by Antonio Galloni

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