Wine myths
Amarone is a fortified wine
“Amarone is high in alcohol because spirit has been added, like Port.”
Nothing is added. Amarone reaches 15% or more because the grapes are dried for months before fermentation, concentrating their sugar — a completely different route to the same strength.
The full answer
Amarone is made by appassimento: whole bunches of Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella are laid out to dry for three to four months, losing a third or more of their water. What is left ferments to a naturally high alcohol.
Fortification is the opposite operation. Port reaches its strength because neutral grape spirit is added during fermentation, which kills the yeast and leaves unfermented sugar behind — which is why Port is sweet and Amarone is dry.
Recioto della Valpolicella is made the same way as Amarone but with the fermentation stopped early, leaving it sweet. Amarone was originally a Recioto that had been allowed to ferment out, and the name means "the big bitter one".
Amarone genuinely is as strong as many fortified wines, and it sits at a similar point on a wine list.
Why the belief persists
Strength is the most obvious thing about it, and fortification is the only route to strength most drinkers know.
A biochemical or physical process that has been demonstrated experimentally and is not seriously contested — the sort of statement that appears in enology textbooks without hedging.
What would settle it: A controlled experiment failing to reproduce the process.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)