Sub-region · Italy
Valpolicella
The Corvina-based red zone north of Verona, and the home of Amarone and Ripasso.
Valpolicella: light, high-acid, sour-cherry red for drinking young. Amarone: dense, dried-fruit, bitter-edged and powerful. Ripasso: somewhere between, and the best value of the three.
About Valpolicella
Ordinary Valpolicella is light, high-acid and cherry-scented — a completely different wine from Amarone despite sharing grapes and territory.
Ripasso sits between the two: finished Valpolicella is re-passed over the drained skins of Amarone, gaining body, alcohol and colour.
A set of valleys north of Verona, and a region defined less by its climate than by a technique. Appassimento — drying the picked grapes on racks for three to four months before pressing — concentrates sugar, acid and flavour, and produces Amarone and Recioto from the same fruit that makes light Valpolicella.
The result is one name covering wines that could hardly be more different: a fresh, cherry-fruited red at 12% and a dense dried-grape wine at 16%. Ripasso sits between them, refermenting ordinary Valpolicella on the Amarone skins.
No authority delimits this name or attaches rules to it. A named division within a wine region that carries no geographical indication of its own. That does not make it less real or less useful — it means nothing legal follows from it, and you will not generally find it on a label as a controlled designation.
Grapes
Wines from here
red
Amarone della Valpolicella
Dried-grape red of enormous concentration: 15–16% alcohol, dried-fruit intensity, and technically dry.
red
Valpolicella
Light, high-acid, sour-cherry red from the hills north of Verona — the fresh counterpart to Amarone.
red
Valpolicella Ripasso
Valpolicella re-passed over the drained skins of Amarone, gaining body, alcohol and dried-fruit character.
sweet
Recioto della Valpolicella
The sweet original from which Amarone accidentally descended — dried Corvina grapes, fermentation stopped early.
Climate
- Latitude
- 45.5° N
- Temperature
- Moderate
- Day–night swing
- Wide
- Rainfall
- Spread through the year
Lake Garda moderates the western end, and the Lessini hills give altitude. Autumn conditions matter unusually much here, because the grapes for Amarone are dried for months after picking.
Moderate continental, sheltered by the Lessini mountains to the north and moderated by Lake Garda to the west. Dry autumn air is what makes appassimento possible.
Vintage variation
Vintage matters somewhat
A dependable climate with occasional difficult years. Most vintages are broadly similar; the exceptions are the ones worth knowing about.
- Latitude. At around 46°, ripeness is usually reached but is not a formality.
- Continental influence. No large body of water to buffer the extremes. Continental places have hotter summers, colder winters and sharper frost risk, all of which widen the gap between years.
Derived from the climate above, not from anyone’s view of particular years. Why there are no vintage scores here.
These are influences on how a wine turns out, not determinants of it. Picking date, yield, vine age and every winemaking decision sit between the climate and the glass.
Soil and geology
Limestone and volcanic basalt in the hilly Classico zone, with heavier alluvial soils on the valley floor.
WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.
Places within it
- Amarone della Valpolicella — The same grapes as Valpolicella, dried for months before pressing — a dry wine of extraordinary concentration and 15% or more alcohol.
- Valpolicella Classico — The original hillside heart of Valpolicella, in five valleys north-west of Verona.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Amarone della Valpolicella
Serve at 16–18°C (cool room temperature).
Try with roast chicken, fillet steak or grilled chicken.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)