Valpolicella DOC

The everyday red wine of Verona. Made from Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara. Unlike its big brothers (Amarone/Ripasso), standard Valpolicella is usually made from fresh grapes without drying.

The Terroir The foothills of the Lessini Mountains. The best wines come from the Classico zone (Sant’Ambrogio, San Pietro in Cariano, Fumane, Marano, Negrar), where limestone and clay soils at 100—300 metres elevation preserve natural acidity. The broader DOC zone extending east produces lighter, simpler wines.

The Styles One name covers four quite different wines, and the distinction matters more here than in almost any Italian appellation:

• Valpolicella: fresh grapes, no drying, no significant wood — a bright sour-cherry red for early drinking.
• Valpolicella Superiore: a minimum of one year’s aging and higher alcohol, giving more flesh without losing the fruit.
• Valpolicella Ripasso: the young wine re-passed over the drained skins of Amarone, picking up colour, alcohol and weight. Convincing in the right hands, and a shortcut to richness in the wrong ones.
• Recioto and Amarone: both from dried grapes, the first sweet and the second dry, and both separate DOCGs.

Grape Varieties Corvina supplies the sour cherry, the perfume and the acidity, and is the reason good Valpolicella tastes of fruit rather than extract. Corvinone, a distinct variety despite the name, adds larger berries and firmer tannin. Rondinella is the reliable workhorse, resistant in the vineyard and neutral in the glass. Molinara, once standard, has been widely dropped for its pale colour — a loss traditionalists argue costs the wine its drinkability.

The Critical Take This is the ’Beaujolais’ of Italy in the best possible sense: fresh, vibrant, smelling of sour cherries and bitter almonds. It is a wine to drink, not to taste. The best examples have a ’cordial’ cherry note derived from Corvina’s thin skins. When a producer makes a Classico Superiore — aged one year minimum — structure and depth increase considerably without losing the wine’s essential freshness. Avoid over-extracted versions from the flatlands.

At the Table The everyday version is one of the most useful reds in Italy: light enough for pasta e fagioli, risotto, grilled sausage, or simply bread and salami. Serve it at 14–16°C, cooler than instinct suggests, and do not hesitate to put it in the fridge for twenty minutes in summer. The Superiore handles roast poultry and braised rabbit; the Ripasso wants beef, game and hard mountain cheese. None of these wines demands a special occasion, which is exactly their virtue.

Benchmark Producers Allegrini, Speri, Brigaldara, Massimago, Marion.