page_title: Valpolicella
section_title: Amarone
hierarchical_section_title: Valpolicella / Grapes and wine styles / Amarone
caption_attribution_description: A food and wine pairing with the Italian wine Amarone from Valpolicella, Veneto.
context_page_description: Valpolicella is a viticultural zone of the province of Verona, Italy, east of Lake Garda. The hilly agricultural and marble-quarrying region of small holdings north of the Adige is famous for wine production. Valpolicella ranks just after Chianti in total Italian Denominazione di Origine Controllata wine production.
  The red wine known as Valpolicella is typically made from three grape varieties: Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara. A variety of wine styles is produced in the area, including a recioto dessert wine and Amarone, a strong wine made from dried grapes. Most basic Valpolicellas are light, fragrant table wines produced in a novello style, similar to Beaujolais nouveau and released only a few weeks after harvest. Valpolicella Classico is made from grapes grown in the original Valpolicella production zone. Valpolicella Superiore is aged at least one year and has an alcohol content of at least 12 percent. Valpolicella Ripasso is a form of Valpolicella Superiore made with partially dried grape skins that have been left over from fermentation of Amarone or recioto.
  Winemaking in the region has existed since at least the time of the ancient Greeks.
context_section_description: While the style of Amarone has existed in the region for centuries, it was very rarely made as a deliberate wine style. Mostly it was produced in warm vintages when batches of wines destined for sweet recioto were unintentionally allowed to ferment completely dry. The modern concept of Amarone has its roots in the early 1950s when producers "rediscovered" the style and began deliberately using yeast strains that could ferment the high levels of sugars in the wine completely into alcohol. The first completely dry Amarones that were commercially marketed were the 1953 vintages produced by Bolla and Bertani. In 2009, the production of Amarone wine in the Valpolicella zone achieved DOCG status. During the petitioning process, the wine producers in the region established several quality control regulations including quotas on the amount of grapes grown in the fertile plains that could be used in Amarone production. Another measure was the 2003 removal of Molinara from the list of mandatory blending grapes.
  Amarone is unique in the wine world. Typically very alcoholic, full-bodied and ripe-tasting wines are produced in very warm climate regions, where the grapes are able to build up large amounts of sugar while ripening on the vine. Examples of warm climate regions include parts of Australia, California and southern Italy. The Valpolicella region is characterized as a "cool climate region" where acid levels are usually maintained and sugar build occurs more slowly in the vine. Grapes destined for Amarone are the last grapes in Valpolicella to be harvested, getting as ripe as they can before mold and rot set in. The sugars in the grapes are then concentrated by a process of desiccation where they are kept in special drying rooms for anywhere from three to four months. During this time over a third of the water is removed as the grapes shrivel into raisins. This method (known as passito) produces more concentrated grapes that still maintain the acid balance of a cool-climate grape. Amarones differ from other late harvest wines in that the presence of Botrytis cinerea is actively discouraged, as winemakers attempt to avoid the smoky, mouldy flavors that come with botrytized wine. Extra care is taken in the vineyard to ensure that the grapes are kept dry and harvested before rot can develop.
  The Amarones are then aged for several years, with many premium examples being aged for at least five years prior to release. They are often aged in large wooden barrels of either Slavonian or French oak. Traditionally the barrels are older and essentially "neutral", in that they do not impart much flavor or wood tannins, but in the late 20th and early 21st centuries more Amarone producers have been experimenting with the use of smaller new oak barrels that introduce more oak flavoring to the wine.
  Amarones are rich, full-bodied wines with flavor and aroma notes that are often compared to the flavors of Port wine. The wines often have notes of mocha, bitter-sweet dark chocolate, raisin, dried fig and earthy flavors. At restaurants sommeliers will often recommend food and wine pairings for Amarone with hearty, heavy dishes such as meat roasts. A classic after-dinner assortment is Amarone paired with walnuts and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Master of wine Mary Ewing-Mulligan notes that well-made examples of Amarone from favorable vintages usually need about ten years of bottle aging for the flavors to mature, and have the potential to continue developing for twenty years or more.
caption: Amarone is often paired with heavy and robust dishes.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "A nice monday night dinner with Dorise and Tina.", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2009:12:08 08:55:33", "Image Copyright": "Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Share Alike", "Image ExifOffset": "306", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "922", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "19563", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:12:07 18:41:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:12:07 18:41:43", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "847997/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "1", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "87", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "87", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}