Recioto della Valpolicella vs Amarone: What’s the difference?

There’s a new piece by Chris Mercer written for Decanter wine magazine about the “two titans of Valpolicella”: Recioto and Amarone.

“Legend has it that Amarone was born after a Recioto fermentation was left too long.
Before fermentation, the two styles have a lot in common.
(…) Key to the process is the appassimento method. This involves drying out harvested grapes, which concentrates sugars and fruit flavours. Grapes will lose weight as water content evaporates.

(…) These days, grapes are more commonly dried in lofts in a more controlled environment; inevitably, though, some have rejected the introduction of new technology in the process.

Grapes must be dried until at least 1 December following harvest, but it often takes longer and fermentation may not begin until January or February”.

It worths reading, here.

Review: Amarone Leksikon app

Amarone della Valpolicella is a pretty successful wine all over the world, but having to deal with its many vintages in the market can be challenging. Is 2012 one better than 2014 or 2011 is the right one? Obviously, you can surf among the plenty of reviews on the web, reading tons of articles or posts about the vintages, but eventually, the final choice is yours: and what if you are in hurry? What if you have not all that time to inform yourself, and seemingly nobody is able to help you?

Well, actually there are at least 3 solutions to this problem.

The first one: have a look here... ;-)

Second solution: drop a line to us!  Write an email about your doubts about Amarone, and we’ll do our best to reply very quickly.

Third one: if you are just interested  to know more about some vintage in the last 10-15 years, downloading the Amarone Leksikon app might be a good idea.

The author, Bo Axman, has been an Amarone-lover for years. This app is the digital version of his book with the same title: here he gathered information about all the Amarone wines in the market - or at least all those he has been able to find - so in a glimpse you can have all the details you need: what grapes the wine is made with, who is the producer, where the winery is, etc. Most importantly, depending on the winery you are interested, you can have a score about some vintage of their Amarone - and writing yours, too. You can find the wine you are looking for, searching it by the label or the producer’s name. The wines are listed in alphabetical order.

The app is limited so far - there are currently more than 850 labels - because each and every year new producers enter the market, but it’s a good start anyway. Furthermore, the app is regularly updated.

You can download the app for your preferred smartphone here in the iOS Apple App Store or in the Android Google Play Store. The app is free, but it offers in-app purchases. 

Updated: 9 facts about Valpolicella that you probably know wrong

If you are a Valpolicella wine lover, it's likely you know many things about this area and its wines. And it's also likely that some of those things are incorrect or totally wrong...

Here we try to correct some of the most common misconceptions about Valpolicella wines.

9 valpolicella facts from Elisabetta Tosi

Flash: Roccolo Grassi adds his "no" to Amarone in 2014

Marco Sartori, owner at Roccolo Grassi

The unfortunate 2014 vintage collects another winegrower of Amarone and Valpolicella wines, Roccolo Grassi, that announces giving up to produce Amarone della Valpolicella 2014. Marco Sartori, the owner, revealed he anticipated the news privately to a friend early at the end of August, and yesterday, Saturday 13th, he made it publicly on Facebook (link in Italian). Roccolo Grassi adds himself to the growing list of Amarone producers that did the same choice like Romano Dal Forno, Bertani and others smaller producers like Terre di Pietra and Tenute Ugolini.

On the same topic, please see our pre-harvest report and this post about the difficult decisions facing Valpolicella producers.