Wine Arcana

Region

Valpolicella

Valpolicella is a red-wine region in Veneto, in the hills north and east of Verona. The same area and broadly the same family of grapes produce fresh Valpolicella, refermented Valpolicella Ripasso, sweet Recioto della Valpolicella, and dry Amarone della Valpolicella.

Their differences come chiefly from whether the grapes are fermented soon after harvest, dried before fermentation, or whether a finished young wine is refermented on the pomace of a dried-grape wine.

Geography and named areas

The production zone occupies the foothill band between the Lessini Mountains and the Adige plain. A series of valleys runs roughly north to south, so elevation, slope, exposure, and the movement of air vary over short distances. Regional mapping also shows limestone-derived, volcanic, and alluvial soils.

The western, historically delimited core is called Valpolicella Classica. It includes the valleys of Fumane, Marano, and Negrar, together with the areas of Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella and San Pietro in Cariano. On labels the corresponding term is Classico. Farther east, Valpantena has its own geographical designation. The wider zone continues through districts of Verona and into the eastern valleys of Mezzane, Illasi, and Tramigna. These eastern valleys belong fully to Valpolicella even though they cannot use Classico.

Grapes and fresh Valpolicella

Corvina gives most Valpolicella blends their customary centre, alongside several other grapes. Current specifications require a combined 45–95% Corvina and/or Corvinone and 5–30% Rondinella, with restricted room for other permitted red grapes.1. Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste, production specifications for Valpolicella DOC, Valpolicella Ripasso DOC, Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG, and Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, consolidated 3 August 2023. Corvinone is a separate variety, not a large clone of Corvina, and a compliant blend need not contain Corvina if Corvinone supplies the required combined share.

The region's most direct red wine is Valpolicella DOC made without prolonged post-harvest drying. Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella tend to yield less phenolic material than darker, more tannic permitted grapes such as Oseleta or Croatina, according to a controlled comparison from one experimental vineyard. That helps explain why fresh Valpolicella can be relatively pale, acid-led, and light on its feet. Vineyard site, ripeness, the proportions of minor grapes, extraction, and maturation can all produce a firmer or fuller wine.

Appassimento and the four denominations

For appassimento, sound bunches are selected at harvest and held in ventilated drying rooms, or fruttai, before fermentation. Water loss raises the concentration of sugars and other solutes and increases the ratio of skins to juice. The grapes also remain biologically active during drying. In a controlled experiment on Corvina, natural drying took about twice as long as strong forced-air drying to reach the same weight loss; the two regimes produced different patterns of gene expression and metabolite accumulation. Drying rate, temperature, humidity, fruit condition, and duration can therefore change the raw material as well as its concentration.

Italian law currently protects four separate denominations that share the same basic geographic boundary and grape framework:1. Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste, production specifications for Valpolicella DOC, Valpolicella Ripasso DOC, Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG, and Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, consolidated 3 August 2023.

Sources