David Kohl shares that his visit to magnificent Lake Garda ignited a passion for Amarone, a rich red wine varietal produced in the Valpolicella region of Verona, Italy. Amarone is named for a unique style of winemaking from partially dried grapes. Corvina + Rondinella are the DOCG approved grapes blended in the Amarone process, producing wines that are aromatic & powerful, ranging from 14% – 16% alchohol. #italianwine #amarone #veronawine #docgwine #powerfulwines
So what’s the grape Explorer talking about today well uh everybody knows that I’m very passionate about Italian wines but I do have a history behind that and I did want to explain and we are featuring a wine today that actually comes from my past so I bring up the
Past present and future but we’re going to talk about the past and this wine is called amaron and amaron is one of my favorite wines I know it’s favorite wines of many many people but I think it’s a misunderstood wine and I don’t think a lot of people really understand
That so we’re going to dive in uh and try to explain a little bit about not only amaron but the region that it comes from and we are we broke out this map of Italy as we always do and when I point this out we are talking Northeast Italy
And right in this area right here is called vichella and Verona is quite close by and then you’ve got Lake G here and I’m going to explain Lake Garder um in in a second but I just don’t want to point this out in the the map that it’s
Valella and you can clearly see this so when you see a bottle of amaron it will say amaron de valella but I wanted to talk about amaron and the grapes that are here because we have the grape Explorer uh so most of the grapes in the production of amaroni are Corvina that
Represents about 45 to 95% and then you have also randanella which is 5 to 30% these are the grapes that are approved by What’s called the doc and uh denomination and you can see that this wine has now a status of docg because in 1990 they were actually granted a doc
Status and then it was also in 2008 um in 2009 they were granted what is called docg which is the highest category of uh of Italian wines what we call the the denomination of original guarantee but not all m are the same and not all amarones aspire
To be the same so one one of the greatest books of course and I always bring this out for Italian wines is the Sheldon and Pauline wasman book and you can see right here that they designate a Zone which is uh considered the area for amaroni production and I’m going to give
A little bit of a a brief history um I would travel to Italy um many T you know many times uh because I would always go to the wine Fair there looking for producers and of course I was in Verona one year so tried to make my reservation
In Verona um it was impossible because you know you you’ve got a book almost like a year in advance or even six months in advance to get a hotel in Verona and then I had some friends say you know if you want to stay in a really
Really nice area outside of Verona very close to the show you go to Lake Garda so I said okay so I booked a nice hotel that was actually on the lake and you know I’m landing in Milan airport so I’m coming it was very very late at night
I’m getting into my hotel I could not see a thing it was very very dark wasn’t lit too uh too well for me so you know very exhausted get into bed you know uh wake up the next morning come out of my hotel room what do I see Lake garter in
Front of me and I’m like oh my goodness this is so beautiful I’m glad that somebody actually told me about Lake Garda because you know never been to this usual place usually I stay in Verona because it’s quite close in proximity to this the fair that’s always
There V Italy but then uh as I’m driving my car to go to Verona I see two signs one says valella this way and bardolino that way and I said oh my God I’m in the middle of amaron territory and yes it’s not a sign for amaron but all the
Producers make amaron and it’s an actual style of wine and it’s quite unique to anything not only in Italy but actually the world where what they try to do and the minimum alcohol content of a of an amaroni especially if it’s docg there are rules has to be a minimum of 14%
That’s qu of kind of rare to even have a 14% amaroni sometimes they’re touching 15 and 16 well why do they get such high alcohol well what they do is they take the grapes traditionally and it was always done where they would lay them out in straw mats and they would Sund
Dry them to get this uh sugar content that would raise the alcohol levels and of course when you’re raising alcohol levels uh you’re doing that with the must as well so uh becomes very very full bodied uh very very rich wine and uh my first experience with this was
Traveling to Italy uh I was in Venice actually it was a a family visit and but the funny thing of it is I bought a bottle of wine and guess what it was a bottle of alaron britani it was 1979 and the guy that I bought it from was a wine
Shop in venice and what he told me to do he said do not drink this wine when you go home you need to put this wine away drink this wine in another 5 or 10 years and it will create the magic what’s the magic well the magic is the bouquet
Because when you have this process the amaroni is made with and you really want to smell top level it’s got a perfume to it and it’s usually almonds and then you get dried figs and you get scents of flowers this is a traditional wine that you you get these kind of scents very
Very rare for am own amaron style wines anywhere in the world it only comes from this particular place but I wanted to highlight this one of my passions as Italian wines and I love amaroni and I love um the fact that we can actually enjoy these wines uh in America you can
Find as I say a lot but there are a lot of great great top level producers the prices are high but the wines are worth it again this is a grape Explorer talking about great great Italian wines