Veneto Essentials

Venice is the capital of Veneto, and for us the region is memorable for much more than wine. When we visited, we stayed in an Airbnb and enrolled our family in an Italian-language immersion program for a week. We have all been learning Italian together, and experiences like that are a wonderful way to connect with a city beyond simply seeing the major sights.

We also happened to be there during Carnevale, which made the trip even more memorable. Venice during Carnevale is theatrical, crowded, beautiful and unlike almost anywhere else. If you can experience it once, it is well worth doing.

Amarone: Veneto’s most distinctive red wine

For wine lovers, Veneto is home to one of Italy’s most distinctive reds: Amarone della Valpolicella.

Amarone is made using a traditional process called appassimento. After harvest, selected grapes are dried for a period of time before fermentation. As the grapes lose water, their sugars, flavors and other components become more concentrated. The result is a wine that is typically rich, full-bodied and high in alcohol, with intense flavors of dried cherry, plum, raisin, spice and sometimes chocolate or tobacco.

What makes Amarone especially interesting is that the grapes are dried but the finished wine is generally fermented dry. That combination of dried-fruit intensity and dryness is one of the style’s signatures.

The Valpolicella family

Amarone comes from the Valpolicella area near Verona, and understanding the broader Valpolicella family helps make sense of it.

Standard Valpolicella is usually lighter, fresher and more straightforward, often showing bright cherry fruit and moderate body. Valpolicella Ripasso sits between ordinary Valpolicella and Amarone in weight and richness. It is made by passing Valpolicella wine over the skins and lees left from Amarone or Recioto production, which can add body, texture and complexity.

Recioto della Valpolicella uses similarly dried grapes but retains enough residual sugar to produce a sweet red wine. Amarone developed historically as the dry counterpart to this style.

The key grapes

The traditional red grapes of Valpolicella include Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella. Corvina is especially important because it contributes the cherry fruit, acidity and aromatic character associated with many of the region’s best wines.

As elsewhere in Italy, the producer and the vineyard source matter enormously. Amarone can range from plush and powerful to more restrained and elegant, depending on how the grapes are dried, how extraction is managed, and how the wine is aged.

Veneto is more than Amarone

Although Amarone is one of the region’s most famous wines, Veneto has much greater variety.

Soave, made primarily from Garganega, can produce fresh, floral and mineral white wines, especially from better hillside sites. At the other end of the spectrum, the Veneto and neighboring areas are also closely associated with Prosecco, the enormously popular sparkling wine made primarily from the Glera grape.

These styles are very different from Amarone, which is part of what makes Veneto such an interesting wine region: powerful dried-grape reds, fresh whites and sparkling wines all coexist within the same broader area.

Wine, culture and place

Our memories of Veneto are tied as much to language, family and Venice as they are to the wine. Spending a week trying to speak Italian, navigating daily life together and experiencing Carnevale gave us a connection to the region that a quick sightseeing trip probably would not have created.

That is one of the pleasures of wine travel. Learning why Amarone tastes the way it does becomes much more memorable when it is connected to an actual place, a family experience and a broader sense of culture.

The Veneto Essentials video on this page gives the broader overview.

What to remember about Veneto

• Amarone della Valpolicella is one of Veneto’s most famous red wines.
• Amarone is made using appassimento, in which grapes are partially dried before fermentation.
• The principal Valpolicella grapes include Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella.
• Valpolicella Ripasso is generally richer than basic Valpolicella but less powerful than Amarone.
• Recioto della Valpolicella is the sweet counterpart made from dried grapes.
• Veneto also produces important white and sparkling wines, including Soave and Prosecco.