Veneto

Big country. Great variety.

Amarone, Bardolino, Chiaretto, Custoza, Lugana, Marzemino, Pinot Grigio, Prosecco, Recioto, Valpolicella and many other well-known terms found on Italian wine labels are products from Veneto.

The wine-growing region in north-eastern Italy covers almost 80,000 hectares. Veneto borders on four other regions. These are Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the east, South Tyrol and Lombardy in the north and west, and Emilia-Romagna in the south. The northernmost tip of the Serenissima borders on Austria. The landscape and climate are largely characterised by the 150 kilometre long Adriatic coast.

The productive landscape was already planted with wine by the Etruscans. The Romans appreciated the ancient wine Raeticum, already mentioned by Pliny in the first century A.D., which could be a predecessor of today's Recioto wines. In the 15th century, the Venetians ruled the Mediterranean and viticulture flourished. From this time comes the term "Serenissima" (the illustrious woman) for the Veneto region.

The widely scattered vineyards have varied soils, stony and calcareous in the northern part, as well as sand, clay, alluvial pebbleland and reddish-brown soil in the southern, flatter land that reaches to the Adriatic Sea and the Po plain. Veneto is the third largest Italian wine-growing region. The main production areas are the plains of the Adriatic coast, the Po, Verona, Vicenza, Venice and Lake Garda.

Quality offensive shows success.

DOC/DOCG wines already account for more than half of production. Most of them come from the areas around the city of Verona, which is considered the wine centre of Italy. This is also where one of the largest wine fairs in the world, the Vinitaly, takes place every year.

The pizzeria boom and tourism on the Adriatic Sea and Lake Garda have made Veneto's wines a big hit. Famous wines such as Soave, Prosecco or Valpolicella were once mass-produced. Clean, but unfortunately without character. This has changed enormously in recent years. All consortia have understood that quality is more important than quantity. However, in some areas, such as Prosecco, this was not easy to change because Prosecco was originally the name of the grape variety - and therefore could not be protected. So there were endless imitators. The name of the grape variety was therefore changed to Glera (an old synonym from the Trieste area) and Prosecco was divided into DOC and DOCG areas.

The success is clearly noticeable. Especially in quality. The absolute Top Prosecco come from the area of the two places Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, the best still receive the designation Superiore or the designation of the situation, here Rive mentioned, which one could compare with Vigna or Grand Cru. The Prosecco from extreme steep slopes near the village of Cartizze near Valdobbiadene have a special position.

Similar to Soave. Strict regulations and controls led to a relaunch of the now at least 70% Garganega (mostly more) mineral white wine. The grape variety is ancient and identical to Grecanico, which produces equally splendid wines in Sicily. The Soave-Classico area lies on steep terraced slopes on volcanic rock northeast of Verona. Some of the best white wines in Italy come from here.

Very good white wines also come from the mountains and hills west of Verona, up to the shores of Lake Garda. Here, too, the Lugana and Custoza imported boot wines were turned into increasingly elegant wines through a quality offensive. The rosé and red wines Bardolino and Chiaretto, which often come from the same vineyards, are still laggards, but it has now been recognised that a wonderful niche can be served here. Because like hardly anywhere else it is possible here to press Bardolino Rosso and Bardolino Chiaretto (Rosato) with moderate alcohol content - and still bring excellent qualities into the bottles. The Renaissance can already be found on all wine lists in the restaurants on Lake Garda. Because they are not only pleasantly light red and rosé wines that are very palatable at high temperatures - slightly chilled - but also wonderful accompaniments to regional cuisine.

The engine of success is the Amarone della Valpolicella.

Today Amarone is an equal export hit next to Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello and the Bolgheri top wines. After harvesting, the grapes are dried on wooden racks or in crates for about 100 days before being pressed. This results in very concentrated, elegant red wines with a slightly higher alcohol content and a sweetish-tart touch (Amaro means bitter in Italian - the best Amarone have a bitter echo, e.g. in fine chocolate).

The classic Valpolicella wine region – so named from the Latin "Vallis polli cellae" (valley of many cellars) – is a northwestern stretch from Verona up to the Lessinian mountains and west towards Lake Garda. Each of the four valleys is covered by a "torrent"The river is almost dry in the summer and has its own riverbed. "capital"Sant'Ambrogio, Fumane, Marano and Negrar. This area is called Valpolicella Classico.

A charming hilly landscape with vineyards at 100 to over 650m above sea level and many historic buildings worth seeing. The wine is mostly still cultivated in the old pergola education, recently also in the French Guyot. Due to global warming, however, the pergola is gaining ground again because of its more open shape. In the meantime, the four eastern valleys Valpantena, Val Tremigna, Val d´Illasi and Val di Mezzane also belong to the Valpolicella cultivation area.

The heart of Amarone: Corvina and Corvinone.

What sounds a bit like Italian winter sports resorts are the autochthonous main varieties of the Amarone. Rondinella and Molinara are added, but with their light colour and rather slender structure they are rarely used. Some wineries have also rediscovered long forgotten grape varieties and are experimenting with them. Sometimes you see Negrara, Rossignola and Oseleta, some of which are now exciting pure red wines on the market. Of course, other grape varieties such as Sangiovese, Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah also grow in Valpolicella, but these must not be used in Amarone. Traditionally, the drying of the grapes is followed by pressing and slow fermentation at natural low temperatures with a long maceration period and fermentation over several months. Amarone della Valpolicella only enters the market after several years of aging in the bottle, sometimes as a riserva.

In the wake of Amarone's success, the quality of its "normal" Valpolicella increased significantly. Very popular are Valpolicella Superiore and Ripasso, also known as Baby-Amarone. A little out of fashion is the Recioto, which is actually the father of Amarone - a finely bitter red dessert wine.

In the last few years, two regions have attracted attention and are particularly popular with lovers of autochthonous grape varieties: the Colli Berici near Vicenza with Tai Rosso and the Colli Euganei, which reach up to the Po plain with Marzemino and Raboso.

Due to the many efforts to improve the qualities, however, there are also confusingly many areas and subdivisions, there are currently 14 DOCG and 29 DOC areas, some with so few wineries and production quantities that they are virtually unknown outside the respective region. But if it makes for better wines, that's fine with us. SUPERIORE.DE