Wine Made From Dried Grapes?

We wanted to alert you to a great buy on a really good Amarone, the famous and fantastic rich red wine from the Veneto in northern Italy. Then we started thinking about some other wines that are made the same way. Our intended focus is on Musella’s Amarone, which is a steal for the quality, but you may enjoy seeing the listing below of bottles for Quintarelli, the most famous producer of Amarone, which are actually ‘very well priced’.

Imagine taking your precious and hard-won crop, and deliberately reducing it by half. This is what happens when grapes are dried to make Amarone, and the same process is used to make the Valtellina wine called Sforzato, and the remarkable sweet wines from the island of Pantelleria. After harvest the most pristine bunches of grapes are spread on mats in purpose-built rooms (ventilation is the key); it takes 2 – 3 months of careful tending for the grapes to lose the desired amount of water from the juice, and then the grapes are pressed and fermented.  The drying process removes water and concentrates sugar; the resulting wine is rich and powerful, with a permitted minimum alcohol level of 14°. These are not shy wines – they’re impressive, full bodied, and delicious. They go well with hearty autumnal / wintery food, like stews and roasts; we’ve also had fantastic Risotto al’Amarone.  The intensity of the wine means that they can be enjoyed in place of Port (with less risk of headache), and they are red wines that go well with cheese. Italians call Amarone and Sforzato “vini da meditazione”; for most of us a little extra contemplation in life wouldn’t be a bad thing!

-Jamie Wolff