 Throw your hands up if you like Amarone. It's a really food friendly big red wine, but do you know the story behind it or what it actually is? We're going to talk all about it in this video. Oh, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. Welcome back to the show where we help you drink adventurously so you can expand your palate and expand your mind. And I hope we're going to be expanding palates and minds today with Amarone della Valpolicella. You know, years ago when I was first getting into wine, Amarone was one of my favorites. It was just something about being so full, rich, luscious that it's just something I really gravitated towards. You know, throughout the years as I've moved towards more medium bodied reds, I drifted away from Amarone, but I'm ready to revisit here today, just for you. Amarone is not a grape variety. It is the name of a wine. Amarone della Valpolicella is principally made of a few grapes, namely Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Molinata, and I think now the Appalachian rules allow for a small portion of international grapes to be blended in. Amarone della Valpolicella comes from Veneto in the north of Italy. You know, surprisingly Veneto produces the most wine out of any region in Italy. A lot of more famous Italian wines are coming out of Veneto, including Valpolicella, Amarone della Valpolicella, Suave, and of course Prosecco. You know, in the genre of old world wines, Amarone della Valpolicella is very unique and specific. Amarone didn't really start emerging until the 1950s. The Appalachian wasn't even established to the late 60s. I think the 80s is when really the wines started to become popular. You have wines that are labeled Amarone della Valpolicella come from a region like this. And then within that region, a smaller portion, there are wines called Amarone della Valpolicella Classico. Those are generally the most coveted wines from the Appalachian. That part of Veneto is famous for producing a sweet wine called Racciotto della Valpolicella, which is made from raisins, from dried shriveled grapes. And there's a legend that actually Amarone was a bearer of that Racciotto that was just forgotten about and then just fermented until it became dry. Thus Amarone was born. Is this true or not? I don't know. One thing that I do know, it's one of Italy's most prestigious and coveted red wines. And a lot of people enjoy it. I have a friend who's a casual wine drinker, and he has the means to drink really nice wine. And I remember him telling me once, you know, I really like Amarone, but I'm always embarrassed to order it because people make fun of me. It's a red wine made from dried grapes or basically raisins. How's the wine made? Pretty simple. Well, simple. Basically, the grapes are harvested. They're dry dehydrated, so they start to shrivel. The sugars start to concentrate. And the grapes can't be made to wine until after the 1st of December. Although in practice, producers wait a lot of time until January or February before they start the fermentations. Like this producer I have here, Mazzi. He dries the grapes for a hundred days. Once the grapes are dried, they start the fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, it's aged in wood. Amarone de la Velpola. Cella needs to be aged for at least two years before it can be released to the market. Amarone de la Velpola. Cella needs to be aged for a whopping four years. Although in practice, producers age for a lot longer, some even 10 years before the wines hit the market. Common Amarones that you'll see out there from brands like Allegraini, Bartani, Mazzi, Tamasi, Zenato. And then you have your co-producers like Chietarelli and Del Forno. You gotta have deep pockets to get some Del Forno. So what do wines taste like? They are dry wines, but since the sugars are so concentrated when they start making the wine, the wines do have a little bit of residual sugar, although they still are dry wines. High in alcohol. These two here, 16.5% alcohol. I've seen even higher. I remember I was in a blind tasting once, tasting a Chietarelli, and I actually thought that it was an old port because I could really feel the alcohol. And then when it was revealed, I was surprised that was an old Amarone de la Velpola. So here we have the Amarone de la Velpola, a classical Castel from Mazzi. This is 2015. And I picked this wine because I really think it shows the classic flavors of Amarone. You're going to get a lot of dried fruit. Think dried cherry, dried sour plums either. You're going to get chocolate. And I'm not talking about cheap Milky Way or Twix bars. I'm talking about that real expensive dark chocolate, that bitter dark chocolate. You get in there with some tobacco notes as well. You know, one of the criticisms with Amarone in the past is because the wines were dried in different ways on straw mats. They weren't always the best quality grapes. So sometimes the wines could be a little bit too wild or there could be problems with them. Now with modern technology, there's dehydration ring stuff like that. The wines have become a lot cleaner. And because Amarone is made from grapes that have a little bit of higher acidity, good ones will have this nice spine of acidity that kind of washes the palate clean. Just classic Amarone smell. Let me give it a taste. So plush and rich on the palate. Literally. It's almost like taking a bite of dried fruit. And then also then secondly, a bite of dark chocolate, maybe stuffing a little bit of tobacco in there. So round and plush. It's easy to see why a lot of people like these wines. At the end, the tannins start to hit hard. So you have to have some meat or some patience. You know, they say the best time to drink Amarone is about 10 years after the harvest. That's kind of the sweet spot. So think of Amarone. It's just maybe a beefed up Velpolicella Classico. You know, those guys in Northern Italy wanted to make big rich wines, but their grapes didn't allow for those such wines to be made. I just want to show you the color difference. Look at this Velpolicella Classico versus the Amarone here. You can obviously see which ones darker and richer. The thing about these wines is they are costly. They're expensive to make. So therefore they're cost prohibitive to a lot of people. But if you want to splurge, you want something special, you want to eat something with heavy braised meats. I think this is a fantastic choice. You know, like I was saying in the past couple years, I was moving towards more medium body red. So in this region, I was going for more Velpolicella Classico, Velpolicella Reposotype wines. If you want to know a little bit more about the types of wines you can find in that part of Italy, I'll show the video right here. I did a video. I'll put it in the description box below. So I want to know, do you love Amarone? Are you drinking it now because it's wintertime? It's wanting to warm you up. Do you have any favorite producers? Let me know in the comments below and I will see you at the next episode. Hello. Thanks for watching. Hey, you made it to the end. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click the bell so you know when new videos are out. If you like content like this, check out our Patreon page where you get some behind-the-scenes exclusive content. Thanks for watching. Cheers. Cheers.