Veneto

Amarone della Valpolicella is one of Italy's most singular wines, and its production method — appassimento — is unlike anything else in the wine world. After harvest, Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella grapes are laid on bamboo racks (arele) or in wooden crates in well-ventilated lofts (fruttai) for three to four months. During this time they lose up to 40% of their weight through evaporation, concentrating sugars, acids, and flavour compounds to extraordinary levels.

The resulting wine — fermented to dryness, which distinguishes Amarone from the sweeter Recioto della Valpolicella — is massive in structure: typically 15–17% alcohol, with tannins that demand years of cellaring and a flavour profile of dried cherry, dark chocolate, tobacco, leather, and Mediterranean herbs. The greatest examples, from producers such as Giuseppe Quintarelli and Dal Forno Romano, are among the most age-worthy wines produced anywhere in Italy, capable of evolving for thirty years or more.

Beyond Amarone, the Valpolicella zone produces a spectrum of styles. Valpolicella Classico — the lighter, everyday expression of Corvina — has long been underestimated, but the best examples from the Classico heartland (the valleys of Negrar, Marano, Fumane, Sant'Ambrogio, and San Pietro in Cariano) are genuinely compelling: bright cherry fruit, a characteristic bitter almond finish, and a freshness that makes them among Italy's most food-friendly reds.

Ripasso occupies the middle ground. Made by re-fermenting Valpolicella wine on the dried grape skins left over from Amarone production, it gains body, colour, and complexity without the full weight of Amarone itself. The technique — once controversial, now firmly established — produces wines of considerable appeal: richer and more structured than basic Valpolicella, but more approachable in youth than Amarone. Bertani's Secco-Bertani, one of the original Ripasso-style wines, remains a benchmark of the style.

East of Verona, the medieval walled town of Soave sits at the centre of one of Italy's most misunderstood appellations. For decades, the Soave name was associated with bland, industrial white wine produced on the flat plains outside the original Classico zone. But the volcanic basalt and limestone soils of the Classico hills — centred on the communes of Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone — produce Garganega of a completely different character: textured, mineral, and capable of genuine complexity with age.

Pieropan, the family estate founded by Leonildo Pieropan in the 1880s, has been the standard-bearer for Soave Classico quality for generations. Their single-vineyard wines — La Rocca and Calvarino — demonstrated in the 1970s and 1980s that Garganega could produce wines of real depth and longevity. A new generation of producers, including Gini, Prà, and Coffele, has built on that foundation, and the best Soave Classico today is one of Italy's most compelling white wines: honeyed and nutty with age, yet always underpinned by a saline, volcanic minerality.

In the steep, UNESCO-listed hillside vineyards between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, the Glera grape produces Prosecco of a quality that bears little resemblance to the industrial versions that flood supermarket shelves. Prosecco Superiore DOCG — particularly the single-vineyard Rive wines and the prestigious Cartizze subzone — is a wine of genuine delicacy: floral and peachy, with a fine persistent mousse and a freshness that makes it one of the world's great aperitivo wines.

The Cartizze subzone, a 107-hectare amphitheatre of steep south-facing slopes above the village of San Pietro di Barbozza, is Prosecco's Grand Cru equivalent — its wines are richer and more complex than standard Valdobbiadene, with a characteristic softness and length that justify their premium. The Rive designation, introduced in 2009, identifies wines from a single village or hamlet, bringing a new level of terroir expression to a category previously dominated by blended, non-vintage styles.