Appellation · Italy
Valpolicella Classico
The original hillside heart of Valpolicella, in five valleys north-west of Verona.
Light-to-medium bodied dry red with sour cherry, almond and a faint bitterness, high acidity and light tannin. Serve slightly cool. Ripasso versions are fuller and richer.
About Valpolicella Classico
Valpolicella Classico is the historic zone — five valleys running north from Verona towards the Lessini mountains — and it is where the region’s hillside vineyards are.
The DOC was extended eastwards onto flatter, more fertile land in 1968, roughly tripling the area entitled to the name. The Classico designation is what distinguishes the original from the extension, and here it means something.
Basic Valpolicella is light, bright and cherry-scented, meant to be drunk young and slightly cool. It is one of the most underrated light reds in Europe and has spent decades being dismissed.
The zone also makes Ripasso — Valpolicella refermented on the drained skins of Amarone — which sits between the light and the powerful styles.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Valpolicella Classico DOC
- Type
- Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
- Set by
- Consorzio Tutela Vini Valpolicella, under MASAF
- Regulates
- Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.
The delimited area, permitted varieties and their proportions, maximum yields, minimum alcohol and — for riserva and similar terms — minimum ageing.
The historic zone, comprising five valleys. The wider Valpolicella DOC was extended east in 1968 onto flatter, more fertile ground.
Grapes
Wines from here
Soil and geology
- Soils
- Limestone and volcanic basalt on the hillsides; Deeper alluvial soils on the valley floors
- Drainage
- Moderate
- Water holding
- Moderate
What it does to the vine. The Classico valleys are hillside sites on poorer, better-drained ground than the flatter land added to the DOC in 1968. Lower vigour and better exposure are the practical differences behind the tier.
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.
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.
Where to go next
Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.
- Amarone della Valpolicella — The same grapes as Valpolicella, dried for months before pressing — a dry wine of extraordinary concentration and 15% or more alcohol.
- Soave — Garganega grown on volcanic and limestone hills east of Verona — a wine badly damaged by its own success and now largely recovered.
- Bardolino — Light red and pale rosé from the shores of Lake Garda, made from the same grapes as Valpolicella.
Approximate centroid: 45.53°, 10.90°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)
- Consorzio Tutela Vini Valpolicella — Consorzio Tutela Vini Valpolicella