Recioto della Valpolicella

The grapes are the Valpolicella's own: Corvina, 45 to 95 per cent, partly replaceable by Corvinone, with Rondinella from 5 to 30 and up to a quarter of other local reds. After drying they must reach at least 14 per cent potential alcohol, and the drying rooms may be ventilated but never heated. The wine ferments only partly, keeping its sweetness, then matures in wood and in bottle; a sparkling version is also allowed, and the Classico and Valpantena areas may name themselves.

The soils — limestone and dolomite, basalt and glacial and river gravels — and a mild climate protected by the Lessini mountains give the grapes the balance they need to survive months of drying. Cassiodorus, minister to Theodoric, already described a sweet wine of dried grapes from here, "regal in colour, dense and fleshy", generally taken to be Recioto's ancestor. It became a DOC in 1968 and a DOCG in 2010.