Verona, Italy
When I think about iconic life-time experiences that we have had, one that stands out, is the open-air opera in the Arena di Verona Opera Festival. Sitting watching the performance unfold under the stars, on a warm, summer evening. Spectacular! The Roman amphitheatre was built around 30AD and is one of the world’s largest and best preserved ancient open theatres…. and you do not need to be an opera enthusiast to thoroughly enjoy the magnitude of the evening.
Having said that … what better way to begin the evening, than attending Vinitaly: The Opera Ouverture. It is the official pre-Opera wine tasting and gastronomic experience associated with the Arena di Verona Opera Festival. It is located in Palazzo della Gran Guardia, just a short stroll across the Piazza Bra from the Arena di Verona. It is billed as ‘A journey to discover the finest that Italian winemaking has to offer, featuring tastings of Italy’s top wines, selected by industry experts and paired with Italian gourmet specialties.
We tasted a sparkling Franciacorta along with Fiano, Greco, Soave, Aglianico, Valpolicella, Primitivo, Barbera and Barollo, …. The perfect start to a wonderful evening.
Soave
After an exhilarating evening at the Arena di Verona Opera Festival, we headed off the next morning to the nearby ‘Classico’ wine village of Soave.
Soave lies to the east of Verona and is an easy half hour drive. The first vineyard we visited was ‘Cornelia Tessari’ in the foothills of Monteforte d’Alpone. Their wines are all made 100% from the indigenous, Italian, white grape variety of Garganega, that have been trained onto a high pergola system to keep them away from the heat of the dark volcanic rocky soil they are grown on. The family-owned Cornelia Tessari make a range of wines including a DOC sparkling, along with a couple of Superior Classico DOCG dry wines, and a sweet Recioto di Soave DOCG. The Recioto di Soave DOCG is made from grapes that have been picked early when they are still high in acidity and brought into the winery where they are dried over the winter months. When the dried grapes are crushed, the juice is so sweet that fermentation stops naturally before all the sugars in the juice can be converted to alcohol resulting in a sweet wine with intense flavour.
Valpolicella
Valpolicella lies to the north-west of Verona, and the vineyards are easily accessible as a daytrip from Verona. The main grape variety grown in this region is the native Italian black grape of Corvina, where it is blended with some other local varieties including Rondinella, Oseleta and Croatina. Valpolicella is an interesting wine region for the different production methods used for their wine and the resulting styles of wine.
We visited the Ilatium Morini winery, which have over 50 Hectares of vineyards and learnt more about the intricacies of their wine production methods. There is a simple Valpolicella Classico DOC dry wine that is fruity, with light tannins and is made to drink whilst it is still young. The passito wine production method is used widely in the region, to increase structure, flavour concentration and colour. The passito method involves picking the grapes early, whilst acidity in the grapes is still high, and then drying the grapes indoors. There are two types of passito wine in Valpolicella. Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG that is dry (or off dry) in style and the sweet Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG that has intense flavours and full body.
They also make a Valpolicella Ripasso DOC, using the Ripasso method. This involves adding a dry Valpolicella wine, to the unpressed grape skins from a fermenting Amarone della Valpolicella. The remaining sugar on the unpressed grape skins is fermented by the yeast on the grape-skins, and this gives the resulting Valpolicella wine more colour, flavour, tannin, and body that it would otherwise have.
