{"id":127,"date":"2015-11-30T19:28:18","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T19:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=127"},"modified":"2015-12-23T21:06:26","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T21:06:26","slug":"valpolicella-follies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"Valpolicella Follies"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were on vacation in northern Italy and one of our stops was Verona.\u00a0 It\u2019s known for Romeo and Juliet and yes, you can visit that famous balcony and have dinner in Romeo\u2019s house.\u00a0 Verona is a lovely little town that gives visitors a chance to see the Roman, medieval and Renaissance worlds.\u00a0 And it\u2019s about a 20-minute drive from Valpolicella.<\/p>\n

A generation or two ago, a lot of wine from Valpolicella was thin, acid and cheap.\u00a0 It was red, hard to pronounce and it paired well with spaghetti and meatballs.\u00a0 Steve\u2019s father, who knew nothing about wine, favored Valpolicella because it\u2019s what Hemingway\u2019s characters drank in the The Sun Also Rises<\/em>. Little did Dad know that the same region made Amarone, one of Italy\u2019s vinicultural wonders.<\/p>\n

Happily, it is easy to tour around the Valpolicella wine growing regions and the wineries welcome visitors.\u00a0 A visit can have its peculiarities, though.\u00a0 We pulled into the courtyard of one winery only to meet the winemaker, who spoke no English.\u00a0 \u00a0He figured we wanted to taste his wines so he invited us into his house where his daughter, who was studying English in school, poured us some wines at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n

At another winery, once again the winemaker spoke no English and he had no daughter to help him.\u00a0 All he could say, at the top of his lungs, was AM-A-RON-E.\u00a0 We drank up, giggled a bit, and went on our way.<\/p>\n

If you get off the highway in the village of San Pietro in Cariano, one of the first wineries you\u2019ll see is Brunelli.\u00a0 While not a Napa palace, it will look familiar to American visitors: a little bar, a lot of bottles and someone behind the bar pouring wine.\u00a0 In this fortunate case, the pourer was Alberto Brunelli, winemaker and son of the founder.\u00a0 He took the time to explain what Valpolicella wines are all about, with some excellent tastes to enhance the lecture.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what he said, in capsule form:<\/p>\n

The primary grapes are Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella, unique to the area.\u00a0 The wine pressed at harvest (usually in August) is Valpolicella Classico or Classico Superiore.\u00a0 It\u2019s not at all bad these days, but it\u2019s basically what Steve\u2019s Dad was drinking.\u00a0 The best of the grapes are set on drying racks and left for four months.\u00a0 Of course, they shrivel and the remaining liquid is extremely concentrated.\u00a0 These get pressed and become Amarone which must, by law, be aged in casks for a minimum of three years.\u00a0 The skins are retained and some of the Classico is poured over them to make a Ripasso (re-passed).\u00a0 The second vinification results in a more alcoholic, deep and rounded wine.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0713\"The Brunelli\u00a0 Winery<\/em><\/p>\n

At a top-end, rather Napafied winery called Zyme, we tasted a significant number of traditional and not-at-all traditional Valpolicella wines.\u00a0 Our guide that day, seeing that we were truly interested in learning about Valpolicella wines, suggested we call her cousin\u2019s winery to make an appointment for a visit.\u00a0 The next day we asked our hotel to make the call and we drove off. The winery was called Quintarelli Giuseppe; we drove for hours trying to find it.\u00a0 Finally, just before noon, we located it and pulled into their yard.\u00a0 A pleasant young man greeted us and asked what we wanted, as they were closing for lunch.\u00a0 We apologized and said that our hotel had called for an appointment but evidently they never had.\u00a0 Crestfallen, we were about to leave when the nice young man said, \u201cOh, well, you\u2019re here.\u00a0 I\u2019ll show you around.\u201d\u00a0 And so we got a personal tour and tasting from Francesco Grigoli, winemaker and grandson of the founder.\u00a0 We were treated like family, meeting his mother along the way to the tasting room, where we discovered that we had happened on the premier Valpolicella winery, whose Amarones sell for $350 or more in the US.\u00a0 And what wines!\u00a0 Their Classico is really a Ripasso and their Amarone is, in Steve\u2019s words \u201ca religious experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_0764\"Francesco Grigoli\u00a0showing Lucie the cask<\/em><\/p>\n

On the way out, we asked Francesco if he could recommend somewhere for lunch.\u00a0 He said most places were closed that day, but he did know one was open because his mother was dining there that day.\u00a0 He made a call and all we could recognize in the flow of Italian was \u201cdue Americani\u201d.\u00a0 He then showed us a little white dot on the horizon and told us to drive there.\u00a0 \u201cHow will we find the restaurant?\u201d we asked.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t worry\u201d, he said, \u201cThe only things in that village are the church and the restaurant\u201d.<\/p>\n

We arrived and were led to a table in the wine cellar.\u00a0 Shortly afterwards, Francesco\u2019s mother arrived with some industry people and greeted us like family.\u00a0 The meal was one of the best we had eaten in Italy and the overall Valpolicella experience was a wine taster\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were on vacation in northern Italy and one of our stops was Verona.\u00a0 It\u2019s known for Romeo and Juliet and yes, you can visit that famous balcony and have dinner in Romeo\u2019s house.\u00a0 Verona is a lovely little town that gives visitors a chance to see the Roman, medieval and Renaissance worlds.\u00a0 And it\u2019s … Continue reading Valpolicella Follies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}