Corvina

The story

Valpolicella's own government disciplinare calls 'vino Retico' — praised by Roman writers — the most distant ancestor of every wine in the zone, Corvina's included. The clearest early trace of the region's dried-grape (appassimento) tradition is Cassiodorus, an adviser to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, who wrote in the 4th century CE (per the disciplinare's own dating) of a wine called 'Acinatico': 'winter must, cold blood of the grapes.' Under the Venetian Republic, Valpolicella wines were literally called 'vini dogali' — the doges' wines. In 1873, what would become Valpolicella Ripasso won praise at the Vienna World's Fair, and around 1900 the poet Berto Barbarani described a Valpolicella 'made of velvet.'

Corvina's modern story turns on two accidents. In 1964 at Gargagnago, Masi first re-fermented young Valpolicella on Amarone/Recioto pomace to make 'Campofiorin' — the technique behind Ripasso — though 'Ripasso' itself wasn't marketed commercially until the early 1980s, and Masi only handed its trademark on the word to the Verona Chamber of Commerce in 2006. By legend, in 1936 a Cantina Sociale Valpolicella winemaker, Adelino Lucchese, found a forgotten barrel of Recioto that had fermented fully dry and declared: 'Questo non è un amaro, è un amarone' — 'this isn't just bitter, it's a BIG bitter one.'

Corvina's own identity shifted just as dramatically: Italy's 1960 official ampelography treated Corvinone as nothing more than an environmental variant of Corvina. The 1993 paper that split them apart is even titled 'Corvina veronese e Corvinone: due varietà diverse' — its title doubles as the correction notice.

Insider story

Masi actually trademarked the word 'Ripasso' worldwide after creating it at Gargagnago in 1964 — for decades, technically, no other Valpolicella producer was supposed to call their own pomace-refermented wine 'Ripasso' at all. The dispute wasn't settled until 2006, when Masi handed the rights to the Verona Chamber of Commerce so the whole zone could use the name.

Even the famous 1936 'forgotten barrel' Amarone legend has a complication rarely mentioned: Amarone's own disciplinare records that unlabelled bottles of the wine already existed for family use in the early 1900s, decades before Adelino Lucchese's barrel — and that the Veronese scholar Scipione Maffei had proposed the word 'amaro' for a Valpolicella wine some two centuries earlier still.

Between 2000 and 2010, Corvinone's own plantings grew more than tenfold in Italy (88 to 930 hectares) in almost the exact window Molinara's plantings fell by more than half (1,301 to 595 hectares) — producers were swapping Molinara out for Corvinone specifically for its 'denser colour and superior flavours.' Molinara stopped being a required blend component in 2003.

And the grape's own tannin reputation is genuinely contested: English and German sources call Corvina naturally low in tannin and colour, with Amarone's grip coming from its blend partners and drying — but Valpolicella's own disciplinare credits Corvina and Corvinone, not Rondinella, with the wine's structure and longevity. Both can be true at once (Corvina is 45-95% of the blend by share), but the two claims are not the same claim, and both stay on record rather than picking a winner.

Technical deep dive

Corvina buds and ripens late (Italy's traditional 'III-IV epoca' scale) with good vigour and 'excellent and constant' yield per the 1960 official ampelography — but its first 1-2 buds per cane aren't fruitful, so growers train it long-cane or pergola-style to reach enough productive buds. The berry is the whole point for Amarone: medium-sized, blue-violet, 'very pruinose, thick and very consistent/firm' — the 1960 scheda states directly the grape 'keeps fairly well both on the vine and in the fruit-store,' i.e. it was already known to suit drying-loft storage before Amarone's modern fame. Recognised clones include Rauscedo 6 and ISV-CV 7/13/48/78/146; rootstocks Kober 5BB, SO4 and 420A rate 'excellent.' Corvinone, its 1993-split sibling, ripens slightly later ('medio-tardiva'), with a physically larger cluster and berries, a darker blue-black skin, and markedly higher susceptibility to downy mildew than Corvina's 'normale' disease rating.

For Amarone, grapes dry 100-120 days, losing roughly 50% of their weight, before fermenting fully to dryness (unlike sweet Recioto, where fermentation is arrested before completion). Minimum 14% ABV (typically 15-16% achieved); minimum dry extract 28.0 g/l standard, 32.0 g/l Riserva (a weight measure, never a percentage — an earlier '32%' figure was a confirmed extraction error). The ageing clock genuinely runs on two different calendars, both set out in Article 5 of Amarone's own disciplinare: the standard 2-year minimum starts 1 January following the harvest; the Riserva 4-year minimum starts 1 November of the harvest year itself. Ageing is traditionally in large, old, neutral Slavonian or French oak botti. Ripasso is made by re-fermenting finished Valpolicella on Amarone/Recioto pomace for 15-20 days.

On the palate: naturally high acid, black plum and sour cherry fruit, and a bitter-almond finish (confirmed independently in Valpolicella DOC's own official tasting note, 'che ricorda talvolta le mandorle amare'). English and German secondary sources describe comparatively light tannin in the Corvina berry itself, while Valpolicella's own disciplinare credits Corvina and Corvinone specifically with the wine's structure and longevity, naming Rondinella as the colour contributor instead — a tension that stands unresolved.

Industry secrets

Amarone, Recioto and Valpolicella Ripasso all share one identical, word-for-word blend rule, confirmed directly in each denomination's own disciplinare: Corvina Veronese 45-95% (Corvinone substitutable for up to half that share), Rondinella 5-30%, other reds up to 25% (15% approved Verona reds + 10% autochthonous). Bardolino, the lighter Lake Garda sibling, runs looser: Corvina 35-80% (Corvinone sub up to 20%), Rondinella 10-40%, Molinara up to 15% (a maximum only, no mandatory minimum), other reds up to 20% — but the regulation text itself never names which specific varieties fill that 'other' bucket, a real gap even at primary-source level. All four denominations — Valpolicella, Ripasso, Recioto and Amarone — were carved out as autonomous from a single 1968 Valpolicella DOC by dedicated ministerial decrees on the same day: 24 March 2010. Molinara, once a mandatory 4th blend member, was made optional in 2003, and its plantings fell more than half (1,301 to 595 ha, 2000-2010) as growers switched to Corvinone instead. Chiaretto, Bardolino's rose, is legally just a vinification method — brief skin contact, or the 'salasso' bleeding technique — applied to the same red blend, not a separate grape set.

On the market side: no retail price bands, auction records or investment data exist for Amarone or any Corvina-based wine — a genuine gap, not glossed over. The one hard commercial signal found: Ripasso's own category grew to 25 million bottles a year by 2013, surpassing standard Valpolicella DOC's own sales.

For collectors

More red grapes

• Corvinone
• Counoise
• Courbu
• Criolla
• Croatina