Amarone della Valpolicella, one of the flagships of Italian enology, is launching a major promotional offensive towards the United States and Canada with the aim of expanding the volumes of its penetration in the promising markets of North America. In general, the United States with a value of over 130 billion euros is the world's leading buyer of agri-food products. Followed by the European Union with 112 billion. At four distances of lengths stands Canada with 32 billion euros. The data referring to Amarone in particular showed last year an increase in exports to the United States of 11 percent and 7 percent to Canada.
The moment is therefore favorable for expanding the market shares for our Veneto producers. The stars and stripes promotional offensive will be launched by "The families of Amarone d'arte", an association that brings together thirteen of the most prestigious wineries that represent the Gotha of the excellent production of Amarone. Historical producers of the area who respond to the names of Allegrini, Begali, Brigaldara, Guerrieri Rizzardi, Masi, Musella, Speri, Tedeschi, Tenuta Sant'Antonio, Tommasi, Torre d'Orti, Venturini and Zenato who have organized two important presentations of Amarone at Montreal and New York which will be attended by the most important buyers and top oenology experts from the two countries.
The Families of Amarone d'Arte – explains Pierangelo Tommasi, vice president of the Association – control 2 hectares of vineyards out of the approximately 8 in the area. Furthermore, Amarone della Valpolicella Docg represents a very important segment of Italian wine exports, just think that every year around 13 million bottles of Amarone Docg are sold worldwide and of these 2,2 million represent excellence and come from the 13 cellars of the Association. Amarone delle Famiglie is also positioned in a premium and super premium price range and in the most exclusive channels”.
Important data for one of the most prestigious Made in Italy wines – for the record, a noble bottle can even cost as much as 700 euros. – but which has an amazing history. In fact, few know that Amarone dates its birth less than a century ago, when in the spring of 1936, a sharecropper of the Valpolicella social winery, Adelino Lucchese, casually tapping a Recioto Amaro, a sweet wine which had undergone a long fermentation in barrel, he came out with an enthusiastic exclamation: "This is not an Amaro, it's an Amarone".
What had happened? It is that in those years, which preceded the world war, with Italy and Germany sending vehicles and men to Spain to support Generalissimo Franco in the Spanish civil war, those who had hidden a few bottles of Recioto often neglected to go and check them. Thus that wine had time to ferment, transforming the sugars into alcohol and to change from sweet to dry. Just an amarone. That farmer had unknowingly baptized a magic word that made the area of northeastern Italy famous all over the world as well as enriching the Italian wine heritage with one of his products of excellence. Today it is obtained by drying the grapes harvested manually and stored in wooden boxes until the end of January or the beginning of February to reduce the amount of water in the grapes.
The Amarone Consortium has become a major national economic reality. It brings together 199 bottlers and as many winemakers including 7 cooperative wineries and 1636 grape-producing farms. In the last 10 years the grapes used to produce Amarone and Recioto have increased exponentially: from 2000 to today, in fact, the quantity of grapes resting has increased more than double and from 2010 to today by 27.5 percent.
Over the next 2 years, 500 new hectares should come into production which will add to the existing 8.030 hectares on which a total production of 963.600 quintals of grapes is estimated, which should ensure a production of around 25,7 million bottles of Amarone and Recioto. To complete the picture, it should be underlined that the wines of the Valpolicella Denomination move a turnover of around 565 million euros/year and, with the exception of Recioto, there is a strong propensity to export. In fact, 65% of the production of Amarone is exported and recently the greatest growths in exports in value have been recorded in China, Sweden, Germany and England.
Among other things, as regards the qualitative aspect, this year's harvest heralds excellent results capable of guaranteeing a product of the highest level. Maria Sabrina Tedeschi, president of the association of "The Families of Amarone d'Arte", explains it well. “In Valpolicella – he says – the 2017 harvest is of good quality, our grapes are perfectly healthy and have a quality level that we can compare to that of the 2015 vintage. A few days before the start of vinification of the first Valpolicella wines, the premises they are absolutely positive and give us hope for a good year”.
And he continues: "In our area, the harvest began with a careful selection of the grapes for the production of Amarone and Recioto della Valpolicella and even if it is still early to make quantitative estimates, we can state that if we were to record a decrease, the latter it will be significantly lower than the forecasts released in recent days; Valpolicella, in fact, has not undergone spring frosts and the plants have had a normal vegetative development. The data – concludes the president – once again confirm the importance of the most suitable lands, those in the hills where the grapes have always been grown and where the families of Amarone d'Arte have always invested. In the hills, in fact, the vineyard adapts better to extreme situations, such as those of the 2017 vintage”.
