How to serve
an Amarone in
Amarone should be served at 16 to 18 degrees, which is cooler than a heated room. Place the bottle in the refrigerator about an hour before serving. If served too warm, the alcohol will dominate and the fruit will fade into the background.
Cut around the capsule below the raised part of the neck and wipe the rim clean. Position the spiral in the center of the cork and turn it straight down. Older bottles often have more fragile corks, so pull slowly and in a straight line.
Pour the wine into a decanter. A young Amarone opens up clearly with air and reveals its fruit sooner; allow half an hour to an hour. With an older bottle, it’s mainly about leaving the sediment behind, so pour carefully and stop as soon as you see cloudiness.
Fill the glass to about one-third. This leaves room to swirl, which this wine needs: its aroma is full of dried fruit and spice and is only released when it comes into contact with air. It’s better to top up with a small amount more often.
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The story
Amarone comes from Valpolicella, the hills north of Verona, and uses the same native grapes as the region's regular wine: corvina and corvinone as the base, with rondinella added. The difference lies in what happens after the harvest. The bunches do not go straight into the press but spend months on drying racks or in shallow crates, in airy spaces where they slowly lose moisture. What remains is smaller, sweeter, and more concentrated. If all the grape sugars are then converted, the result is a dry, full-bodied wine called amarone. If some sugar remains, the same wine is called recioto.
The right glass
Amarone calls for a large glass. The wine is high in alcohol and full of aroma, and needs room to swirl without anything going over the rim. A bowl of 70 cl or more provides that surface area, while a tapered rim concentrates the aromas of dried fruit, spice, and chocolate instead of letting them disperse. For the sizes, see the large wine glasses; if the bottle is decanted first, you will find a model with a wide base among the decanters.
Luigi Bormioli Talismano Wine Glass 70 cl Bordeaux (4 pieces)
RCR Aria Wine Glass 72 cl Burgundy (6 pieces)
Both sets together € 83,90.
The right tools
For an amarone, besides the glass, you mainly need a corkscrew and a decanter, because this wine really opens up with air. Use the bar tools below when a glass of red goes into a mix: a bar spoon for stirring and a jigger for measuring. These are the bar tools we use ourselves; you can find everything in our bar tools & cocktail sets.
Glass set (our choice 01) + 2 bar tools together € 63,85.
What do you pour alongside it?
Amarone is a wine for the heavier part of the evening, so there is usually more on the table: something lighter beforehand and something sweet afterward. These are the wines that pair well around it, from a glass of champagne to start to a moscato with dessert. On each drink page, you can read the alcohol percentage, what it tastes like, which cocktails it works in, and which glass you need.
Variations & twists
Three neighbors grow on the same hills. Ripasso is regular Valpolicella that passes over Amarone's skins and lees once more after fermentation, picking up color, tannin, and flavor and becoming just a little fuller. Recioto comes from exactly the same dried grapes as Amarone, but fermentation is stopped before all the sugar is converted, leaving a sweet wine. At the bottom is regular Valpolicella, light and juicy, with no drying and no second fermentation. Want to read more? Explore all drinks and brands.
Serving tip
Serve at 16 to 18 degrees and do not keep the bottle next to the heater. Amarone is not a wine for a light lunch: it belongs with stews, game, braised oxtail, and dishes with a long cooking time. It works just as well after the meal, enjoyed on its own with a piece of aged cheese, where the bitter finish contrasts with the saltiness.
Good to know
What appassimento is exactly
Appassimento is the drying of grapes before they are made into wine. The bunches are harvested and then laid out for months on racks or in shallow crates, in spaces where air can circulate around them. During that time, they lose a substantial amount of moisture, leaving sugars, acids, color compounds, and flavor compounds more concentrated in a smaller berry. The juice pressed afterward is therefore thicker and sweeter than the juice of fresh grapes.
Why Amarone is so full-bodied
Drying concentrates the sugar in the juice, and during fermentation that sugar is converted into alcohol. Because almost all the sugar is converted in Amarone, the result is a dry wine with a high alcohol content: usually roughly 15 to 16 percent, sometimes slightly more. That is higher than in almost any other dry red wine, and it is why a small glass already feels substantial.
The difference with Ripasso
Ripasso starts out as regular Valpolicella. After fermentation, the young wine passes over the skins and lees left over from Amarone once more, triggering a second fermentation. The wine picks up color, tannin, aroma, and flavor and becomes fuller than the base wine, but it does not match Amarone: the grapes themselves were never dried.
The difference from Recioto
Recioto della Valpolicella comes from exactly the same dried grapes as Amarone. The difference lies in the fermentation: with Recioto, fermentation is stopped before all the sugar has been converted, so sweetness remains in the wine. Amarone is the dry version of the same idea, and the name says so too, because amaro is Italian for bitter.
Why the name means amaro
Amaro is the Italian word for bitter, and Amarone is its augmentative form. The name sets the wine apart from the sweet Recioto made from the same grapes. You can taste it in the finish: after the ripe, almost jammy fruit comes a dry, slightly bitter tail, and that tail is what keeps the wine balanced.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is Amarone?
Amarone della Valpolicella is a dry red wine from Veneto, north of Verona, made from Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella. After harvesting, the grapes dry for months on racks or in crates before being pressed. This concentrates the juice, resulting in a wine with roughly 15 to 16 percent alcohol, with flavors of dried cherry, plum, fig and chocolate.
What is the difference between Amarone and Ripasso?
With Amarone, the grapes themselves are dried first. Ripasso is ordinary Valpolicella that, after fermentation, passes over Amarone's skins and lees once more, allowing it to pick up color, tannin and flavor. As a result, Ripasso is fuller than the base wine but lighter than Amarone.
Is Amarone sweet?
No, Amarone is dry. That is precisely the point of the name: amaro means bitter, and the wine distinguishes itself from Recioto, which comes from the same dried grapes but remains sweet because fermentation is stopped. The ripe fruit may taste sweet, but virtually no sugar remains in the wine.
At what temperature and in what glass should you serve Amarone?
At 16 to 18 degrees, in a large glass of 70 cl or more. So cooler than room temperature: put the bottle in the fridge an hour before pouring. The large glass gives you room to swirl, which this wine needs to release its aroma.
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