Amarone della Valpolicella

Amarone is made from grapes left to dry for months after the harvest. The blend is built on Corvina, 45 to 95 per cent — up to half of which may be replaced by Corvinone — and Rondinella, 5 to 30, with up to a quarter of other local red grapes. The dried grapes must reach at least 14 per cent potential alcohol and may not be crushed before the first of December; drying rooms may be climate-controlled but never heated. The wine ages at least two years from the first of January after the harvest, and a Riserva four years from the first of November. The Classico zone and the Valpantena valley may appear on the label.

Its ancestor is the Acinatico, a wine of dried grapes that Cassiodorus, minister to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, asked the landowners of Valpolicella to send to the royal table. Amarone was recognised as a DOC in 1968 and became a DOCG in 2010.