Five Takeaways from “Amarone: Fine & Contemporary Wine”

In May 2023, I had the opportunity to attend a masterclass organized by I.E.E.M. USA and Famiglie Storiche and hosted by Jeff Porter at the Glasshouse Chelsea in New York City called “Amarone: Fine & Contemporary Wine".

Famiglie Storiche is an organization of 13 historic producers of Amarone della Valpolicella. It was created in June 2009 with the mission of helping the members collectively trade up the quality and image of Amarone around the world.

Famiglie Storiche currently includes the families of Allegrini, Begali, Brigaldara, Guerrieri Rizzardi, Masi, Musella, Speri, Tedeschi, Tenuta Sant’Antonio, Tommasi, Torre D’Orti, Venturini and Zenato. 

Each of the 13 producers of Famiglie Storiche contributed one Amarone to the masterclass to showcase the diversity of expression, terroir, production methods and ageability of Amarone. The panel sought to highlight the efforts of the families to bring Amarone “to the moment” in working with climate change, experimenting with new techniques and revisiting traditional production methods and to emphasize Amarone as an ageworthy fine wine of the global market.

Here are five of my key takeaways from the Amarone masterclass. 

Preface: First, What is Amarone? 

Amarone is a red blend wine made in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is composed of 45-95% Corvina and/or Corvinone, 5-30% Rondinella and a maximum of 25% other red grapes (none of which may exceed 10%). By law, the grapes must be air-dried after picking to concentrate the flavors in the resulting wine in a process called appassimento, and the final wine must achieve a minimum alcohol level of 14.0%. Further, Amarone must be aged in wood for a minimum of 2 years (4 years for Riserva). 

#1: The Importance of Terroir

Amarone is undoubtedly a production-driven wine due to the importance of appassimento in creating the final wine. However, one of the points that the panel stressed was that terroir nonetheless has a great impact on the final wine. The Valpolicella region contains 11 different valleys, which provide numerous different soil types (clay, limestone, volcanic soils), expositions and slope grades, which create different expressions.

The hillsides (as opposed to the flat land in the valleys) are critical to high quality grapegrowing, as they promote drainage (important for especially rainy periods to prevent waterlogging and dilution of flavor compounds), and the poor soils in the hillsides (as opposed to the fertile plains in the valley floor) encourage grapevine roots to bury deep vertically (as opposed to horizontally in the shallow subsoil) into the different layers of the soil, which increases the complexity of the flavor compounds.

#2: Appassimento as a Transformative Process and Not Just a Dehydrating Process

Appassimento is the process of drying the grapes after picking for a minimum of 2 months to reach a semi-dry state. The process increases the concentration of sugar, flavor compounds, tannins, color and acidity as the grape loses up to 40% of water content.

The producers at the event yesterday stressed that appassimento is not so much about taking away and drying out grapes like a raisin, but about transforming the grapes to bring out flavors that would not otherwise be present without the process.

They described how appassimento changes the flavors in the fresh grape to dried fig and cherry sauce flavors and increases levels of glycerin, a compound that increases the sense of fullness and round texture that makes us associate Amarone with velvet and plush fabrics.

In essence, it's not so much about taking something out, but adding to and transforming the natural qualities in the grapes. The process is so important to Amarone that they described appassimento as "the second ripening."

#3: Ageability of Amarone

During the masterclass, we tasted Amarones starting from the 2017 vintage all the way back to the 2004 vintage, and it became clear to the room that:

(a) Amarone can be enjoyed both in a relatively youthful state (three years from the vintage) for its fresh cherry flavors and also in a predominantly tertiary state exhibiting balsamic, savory wet leaf notes; and

(b) The high alcohol content, high acidity and concentration of flavor compounds from the appassimento process can make Amarone just as ageable as many other great red wines of the world. Many of the older vintages still exhibited a vibrant freshness despite being over 15 years old and tasted much younger than we would have thought.

#4: Specificity in Amarone

One of the points that Jeff Porter and the representatives of Families Storiche kept reiterating was the specificity of Amarone della Valpolicella. Many other producers make "Amarone-style" wines using appassimento, but the varieties of Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella are native and unique to the Valpolicella region and not found in most places in the world.

Further, these wines simply cannot be readily imitated and reproduced anywhere in the world. Through centuries of wine production, the producers in Valpolicella have figured out the vineyard management techniques (i.e., terracing the steep vineyards), the best proportions for their desired blends and the right conditions of humidity and temperature for their ideal appassimento process and how to control those conditions to produce high quality wine. Amarone is specific to the Valpolicella region.

#5: So Many High Quality Amarone Wines!

As we tasted through the 13 wines, I kept writing in my tasting book, "wow!", "my favorite so far!", "love"! So many wines exhibited exceptional complexity, finish and texture emblematic of top fine wines of the world. One of my key characteristics of a top quality wine is the specificity of flavors and aromas in the wine (as opposed to general flavors of “red fruits” or “dried fruits”), and some of these wines were incredibly precise and yielded some interesting notes I don't often find in wine, such as aged Balsamic vinegar, mole sauce and oyster sauce.

The diversity of Amarone was clear even between similar or the same vintages, with some wines containing higher levels of residual sugar and others containing almost no residual sugar, and some wines exhibiting freshness as their calling card while the savory notes were the hallmark of certain other wines. 

My top 3 favorite wines from the tasting: 

1. Tedeschi - Capitel Monte Olmi, Amarone della Valpolicella Classico D.O.C. 2005: Blanched vegetables, Korean soup soy sauce, oyster sauce, dried figs, wood-eared mushrooms, mulberry spices with fully resolved, velvety tannins

2. Brigaldara - Amaraone della Valpolicella D.O.C. Riserva 2007: Dried orange peels, Campari, men’s cologne, fresh and dried Italian herbs, slight mint. Vibrant and still fresh with plush and resolved tannins

3. Tenuta Sant’Antonio - Lilium Est, Amarone della Valpolicella D.O.C.G. Riserva 2012: Dark cherry cola, savory bark, espresso, chocolate syrup, baked plum notes with insane complexity, length and well-integrated alcohol

Have you had Amarone della Valpolicella? Are you also a fan? Comment below!