WineInk: Amarone — time in a bottle

In this day and age, many of us find it hard to look ahead beyond our next week, day, or even hour. Things move pretty fast around here.

But as I write this, there are wine producers in the Veneto region of Italy who are harvesting grapes with an eye on the future when the fruits of their labors will be at their best. They are the producers of one of the greatest gems in Italian wines: Amarone.

Amarone is a product of patience, and each bottle tells a tale of the intense labor, love, and time that goes into making them. In every mouthful, the quest for quality becomes clear. The marriage of these factors makes Amarone among the most intriguing wine styles you will ever taste.

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When ordering, ask for “Ah-ma-ROH-nay.” The name is derived from the Italian word for bitter or tart, amaro. A good Amarone will play between a dance of a bit of bitterness, followed by beguiling sweetness on the finish. The flavors of leather, smoke, coffee, cola, chocolate, caramel, spices, prunes, raisins, and more, all can be found in the wines in varying quantities. In 2009, Amarone was awarded DCOG status (Denomination of Controlled Origin and Guaranteed, the highest level of recognition of quality given to an Italian wine) as one of Italy’s most scrutinized and prized wines.

As we move into the colder climes of late fall and early winter, the heft and power of a good Amarone (most are over 15% abv) works well with the foods of the seasons. Bold dishes like smoked meats, braised short ribs, beef bourguignon, and heavier pasta dishes like beef stroganoff are all better with a bottle of Amarone. These wines are made for taking the time to savor them, and an evening’s repast will be rewarded.

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Amarone comes exclusively from the Veneto region of Italy in the northeastern part of the Boot, about a 1.5-hour drive west of Venice, just north of Verona. Blessed by the presence of the waters of Lake Garda, the area is stunningly beautiful. It also occupies a very important place in the world of Italian wine, as it is the home of the white Soave and the lighter style red wine, Valpolicella, which is made from the same grapes as Amarone.   

The winemaking history in Veneto goes back centuries to when the Romans made wine in the region called Recioto (retch-ee-OT-oh). These high-alcohol, intensely-sweet wines were made by drying grapes for an extended time on straw mats to increase their sugar content before crushing and produced wines that could be easily transported on foot or horseback without spoiling.

But Amarone is a more recent revelation. In fact, the first bottling of the wines dates just to the 1930s, and it was not until the 1950s that producers began making it in earnest. The legend of Amarone goes that one day, who knows when, someone left a batch of Recioto in a barrel too long, and the magic of nature and a healthy dose of yeast conspired to take most of the sweetness out of the wine. A new style of heavily-concentrated, yet dry, wine was born. Serendipitously so, one might say.

Amarone is a blend of three regional grapes: Corvina, which dominates, Rondinella, and Molinara. These grapes are given as much hang time as possible to concentrate the sugars, flavor, and aroma and are harvested late in September or even into early October. Just about now. Hand-picked, the clusters of grapes were traditionally placed on bamboo mats to dry for up to 120 days in a process that has a name I adore, appassimento. Loosely, the word translates to “withering,” but to me, it connotes the beautiful passage of time.  

This process allows the sugars to concentrate and removes so much moisture that, by February, the grapes weigh as little as 35% of what they weighed when harvested four months earlier. To produce just one bottle of Amarone, upwards of 20 pounds of grapes must be harvested and dried. This time and labor-intensive way of winemaking is what gives Amarone its unique character.

While still made based on concepts originally used by the Romans centuries ago, the appassimento method is now augmented in many wineries by the use of high-tech drying lofts, called fruttaio, that nurture the grapes in perfectly-created drying conditions. There is even debate in the region among those who favor the traditional method of production and those in favor of tweaking techniques using technology to produce wines that are lower in alcohol and sugars than some of the Amarone made in the past

Amarone is an exceedingly sought-after, though hard to classify, wine. Some bottlings retain the sweetness of the fruit, while others more accurately reflect the bitterness to which it owes its name. Tannic at times, depending upon the maker, the wine can have a thick, viscous feel in the mouth, coating the teeth, and leaving a stain. These are wines of substance, and because of the time and attention involved, they often carry a high price tag.

Pass some time with an Amarone. You won’t be disappointed.