he area where Valpolicella DOC wine is produced has various fascinating and intriguing features: no hillside receives the same type of light and each hill presents its own type of natural environment so that the entire area is a vast combination of different types of landscapes with their own unique panoramas and different types of beauty.
Due to its geographical location, mild climate and layout of the land, Valpolicella has been dedicated for centuries almost exclusively to the cultivation of grapes and marble production. Located north of the city of Verona, bordered by the Adige River to the west and the Lessinia mountains to the north, Valpolicella is a land where some of the most famous Italian DOC red wines came to life, including Valpolicella, Valpolicella Superiore and Ripasso, sweet Recioto and the very famous Amarone.
Wine production in this area goes back to prehistoric times and was further developed by the Etruscans and Romans. Wine-growing reached it greatest expansion during medieval times in supplying wines to the city of Verona and, afterwards, nearby Vicenza. In the second half of the nineteenth century, winegrowing activity became modernized from a technical and organizational standpoint: specialized vineyards were extended, the first wine producers’ co-operatives were established and exportation abroad began. The twentieth century brought on developments in terms of quality and quantity. The range of Valpolicella wines was thus completed, in a qualitative sense: the first document testifying to the existence of Recioto is from 1888, and it is in 1936 that Amarone is created.
During the course of the centuries, the introduction of new types of vine growing and new vineyards types changed the agrarian landscape, but in a balanced way with traditional ways. In past centuries land use rarely changed: rotation of various crops, extension of seeded crops, with a consequent increase in terraced areas with marogne (the traditional dry stone walls), the development of cattle breeding farms from half way through the 1800s in the higher hills, with their increase in meadows and the construction of barns for animals and hay. Instead, modernization of agriculture after the 2nd World War brought on a specialization of areas according to altitude: the strip of land closest to the Adige River is taken up by fruit growing, especially peaches, as well as olive groves; the vineyards are located in the foothills and lower hills; the higher hills host cherry orchards where vineyards were interspersed among the rows of trees on meadows and slopes that were once wooded.
The oldest area of wine-growing in the historical Valpolicella Classico zone is composed of the five municipalities of Negrar, San Pietro in Cariano, Marano di Valpolicella, Fumane and Sant’Ambrogio di Valpolicella. The entire area has a surface area of about 240 square kilometres and can be divided into three areas: the first part on the plain down to the Adige River (Parona, Pescantina, Ponton and Volargne); the second, larger and with more vineyards, includes the hills in the valleys of Marano, San Pietro in Cariano, Sant’Ambrogio and the southern part of Negar; the third area, higher up, reaches 900 metres in altitude and includes the smaller and upper villages and hamlets of Fumane and Negrar. The three zones differ for their geological formation, with earth that is compact and red, Ecocene limestone, Cretecean marl and basalt, whose different composition greatly influences wine-growing.
Beside the Valpolicella Classica zone, to the east of Verona there are other valleys which also produce DOC Valpolicella. The entire Valpolicella area is composed of five parallel valleys that extend out like the fingers from a hand: the long and narrow Valpantena valley, The Val Squaranto Valley, the intensely green Mezzane valley, Illasi valley and the Tramigna valley.
The features of this unique and varied land are what gives the wines of Valpolicella their original and traditional qualities. They represent a perfect blend of indigenous grapes: the choices made by producers are historical ones that rest on the development of growing techniques and from a deep and passionate wine-making culture that nowadays gives the area its avant-garde position in world markets.
