GETTING FRESH WITH VALPOLICELLA SUPERIORE
by Lars Leicht
Even experts in Italian wine can find themselves in deep trouble with key consumers of the category, as Verona-based wine marketing consultant and WSET Certified Wine Educator J.C. Viens recently discovered. In his case, that consumer was his wife, who called him while he was on his way home from work and directed him to pick up a Valpolicella Superiore to go with dinner.
The shopkeeper, perhaps familiar with Viens’ international reputation, recommended a prestigious example of a local Valpolicella that had briefly undergone appassimento—a process in which the grapes dry in aerated attics—to give it greater body and depth. Instead, what Viens found at home was a depth of trouble.
“We love and respect Amarone and Ripasso,” said Viens, referring to wines that are required to undergo appassimento. But because the technique is optional for Valpolicella Superiore, it can come as a surprise. “That night my wife wanted something fresh and lighter, and I didn’t deliver it. I had to sleep on the couch for a week.”
He laughingly recounted the domestic imbroglio as he opened the first edition of the virtual international trade conference “Valpolicella Superiore—A Territory Opportunity” on June 24. Viens, along with wine educator Filippo Bartolotta and Gabriele Gorelli, who recently became Italy’s first Master of Wine, led a double-blind tasting with an international audience who had received eight mini-samples of Valpolicella Superiore selected to demonstrate the designation’s range of regional and varietal typicity. Gorelli—who called Valpolicella Superiore a “little daily luxury”—lauded their consistency, highlighting the presence of strawberry, cherry, mint, and white pepper notes as well as the sapidity and structure endowed by the short appassimento (about 40–60 days as opposed to 90–120).
All Valpolicella wines, including Ripasso, Amarone, and the sweet style known as Recioto, are made from a blend of local grapes that include 45–95% Corvina and/or Corvinone and 5–30% Rondinella. While Valpolicella can be a light, fruity young wine released just weeks after the harvest, the Superiore designation requires at least one year of aging before release, and an alcohol content of at least 12%.
The online tasting of Valpolicella Superiore took place on the heels of the release of the Consorzio Tutela Vini Valpolicella’s “Valpolicella Annual Report”; delivered minutes earlier by consortium president Christian Marchesini, it reflected on 50 years of market activity, production trends, and climate change.
As if seeking to maintain domestic tranquility in homes like Viens’, Marchesini noted that an internal survey of roughly one third of the consortium’s members shows a shift away from using any level of appassimento in Valpolicella Superiore. “We want to give value to the wine that is most closely identified with the territory, starting by rebuilding the identity of that product . . . with a vision that is shared by all the producers,” said Marchesini. He reported that of the 94% of respondents that produce a Valpolicella Superiore, 60% do not use appassimento, while the remainder use only a small percentage of grapes that have undergone appassimento for a period significantly shorter than the three months Amarone calls for.
The consortium’s renewed emphasis on Valpolicella Superiore also takes direction from that survey, in which an overwhelming majority of the producers expressed that consumers in Valpolicella’s top two markets— Italy and the U.S.—do not know the product well enough due to factors like the multiplicity of styles available and internal competition from Ripasso. In fact, the Consorzio reported that total sales of the region’s flagship wines were up by 18% over the first five months of 2021, while Amarone underwent a boom to experience a 38% increase in volume. That’s the largest single growth spurt in at least ten years, Marchesini pointed out, and a strong sign of a receptive market for not only the “method” wines of Ripasso and Amarone but the “territory” wines of Valpolicella and Valpolicella Superiore.
“We believe the moment has arrived to clarify to the trade and consumer the full range of our wines,” Marchesini added. “After the success of our Valpolicella Annual Conference in February, we follow through with a digital program for Valpolicella Superiore, a wine that is young and fresh but at the same time complex even without the using the appassimento technique, [making it] able to satisfy new trends in wine consumption.”
Greater understanding of the potential of Valpolicella can only be good news for Viens—and hopefully it can keep him out of the doghouse.
