The appassimento - i.e., the drying grapes process - dates back to Roman Age, and is widespread in all the Italy, at least. Romans did need to dry the grapes for concentrate the sugar of the berries in order to get sweeter and more alcoholic wines. This way, the wines lasted longer and could be shipped even very far.

Afterwards a quite difficult vintage, this 2015 harvest in Valpolicella looks a lot better, mainly for the red grapes. If 2014 has been claimed by the producers (in Verona area) as “a vintage for white wines”,  2015 is a “red wines vintage” definitely. 
“The 2015 vintage is quite similar to 2007 -  the Consortium Valpolicella says - The wines will be structured, full-bodied and alcoholic (15-16° Vol.)”...

Every year, the Chamber of Commerce in Verona organizes a wine competition reserved exclusively for wines produced in the province of the city. The criteria are those of any wine competition (like Vinitaly's one), so no surprise from this side. The news is that this year also an olive oil competition has been organized, so  you can get a guide to the best labels of this product as well. The award ceremony has been hosted in Dogana Veneta, Lazise (Lake of Garda)...

Making wine is often a hard task, a game of balance between opposite strengths: technical issues, legal requirements, personal knowledge and vision, local culture, international taste, marketing trends...

And climate. Too often we underestimate this detail, but  in viticulture it is among the most important element everywhere in the world. No doubts that climate in Valpolicella nowadays is rather different than in the past, and that viticulture has had to adapt itself to those changes.

Consequently, now the wines are different than in the past decades -not to mention other reasons more related to the technique or the customers' taste, of course- although the winery style may be the same at the time (or trying to be).

In the last Vinitaly, the Cantina "Valpolicella"  di Negrar organized a quite interesting vertical tasting of its recent best vintages - 2008, 2005, 2003, 2000, 1997 - of the most important Amarone della Valpolicella: the cru "Vigneti di Jago". Daniele Accordini, the general manager and winemaker, showed us some charts and data about the climate in those vintages - sunlightining, rains, flowering time and other data - explaining how the practices of their viticulture and the winemaking process are adapting themselves and trying to correctly interpret  the natural trends, in order to not distort the final result and support their usual style...

Amarone della Valpolicella is not your ideal wine when the temperature rises, but is perfect when outside the frost covers the fields. Thus, if you are going to buy a good bottle of Amarone, maybe this is the right moment to do it, because in this second half of January there are two important events in Verona: "Amarone in Villa" and "Anteprima Amarone DOCG". Both are good opportunities to taste many different bottles of Amarone della Valpolicella, made by almost every producer of Valpolicella...