Located just outside Verona in Italy’s Veneto region, Valpolicella, or ‘valley of many cellars’ in Latin, has been a noteworthy area for wine production since the time of the Roman Empire. Indigenous grapes like Corvina, Rondinella, and Oseleta were historically blended together after being dried to produce more concentrated wines. The appassimento method has been used to make rich sweet wines for millennia, but it was not until the 1950s that one of these wines was fermented dry. So while Amarone may be famous today, its history is relatively short in the context of Italian wine.

To make Amarone, grapes are harvested late in the growing season and brought to well-ventilated drying rooms called fruttai. Here, the grapes are gently laid out on bamboo racks and left to dry for 3-4 months. The grapes lose 30-50% of their weight during this time, thereby concentrating their flavor and sugar content. This appassimento technique precedes long macerations and years of ageing in oak, and the resulting wines have high natural alcohol levels and intense fruit yet finish surprisingly dry. Amarone is an age-worthy wine with astounding complexity that combines sweet dark fruit with spices, notes of bitter chocolate, and velvety tannins, and this trio highlights three of the appellation’s benchmark producers.

The Allegrini family has been a prominent winemaking family in Valpolicella since the 16th century, and grapes from the vineyards they have acquired over the centuries are blended together to create their flagship Amarone. The Allegrini style favors elegance over power, featuring a soft, smooth texture with surprisingly fresh acidity. Ripe red fruit flavors and floral aromas are front and center, while subtle notes of winter spices and coffee add to the wine’s complexity.

Founded in 1960, Zenato is another classic name in Valpolicella. Their opulent Amarone represents a stylistic counterpoint to Allegrini. Dark fruit like black cherries and plums combine with notes of chocolate and balsamic to create a decadent expression of the potential of the appassimento process, while the wine’s lush, creamy texture is both hedonistic and luxurious.

Tommaso Bussola took over his uncle’s vineyards in the mid-1980s and while he was once a rising star in Valpolicella, his position amongst the region’s elite is now undeniable. If Allegrini is about elegance and Zenato is about opulence, Bussola is about power and intensity. Super-concentrated dark red fruit is accented by sweet spices while ripe tannins are easily enveloped by the wine’s sheer density. Despite the wine’s richness and potency, Bussola manages to deliver an impeccable balance that represents the pinnacle of Amarone della Valpolicella.