Molinara

The Story

For most of its long history in Valpolicella, Molinara was the silent partner in one of the wine world's most famous blends. Alongside Corvina (the star) and Rondinella, it provided the acidity and lift that made Amarone and Valpolicella Classico so food-friendly — a thankless, structural role that nobody noticed until it was gone. The 2003 Amarone DOCG revision changed everything: Molinara shifted from a required blending component to optional, with a maximum of 15% allowed but no minimum. Producers began dropping it almost immediately, driven by a simple commercial concern — Molinara contributes a light, pale color to the blend, and in an era when dark, inky, extracted wines were commanding premium prices, that transparency read as weakness. The power-over-elegance trend did Molinara no favors. By the 2010s, most major Amarone houses had minimized or eliminated it entirely. But the story doesn't end there. A small number of producers — most notably Fratelli Vogadori in Negrar — kept faith with the variety and began making 100% Molinara wines, specifically a rosé that showcases what the grape does alone: bright cherry color, fresh and fruity aromatics of forest berries, light body, marked acidity, and an honest drinkability that heavier Amarone cannot replicate. Vogadori's Molinara Rosato is now the variety's champion bottle, proof that what was discarded as a structural ingredient is actually capable of standing alone with character and charm.

Insider Story

The Molinara debate exposes a fundamental tension in the Valpolicella appellation: traditional elegance versus modern market-driven power. Old-school producers who remember the original Amarone recipe — when Molinara was mandatory and the wines were lighter, more food-friendly, more Burgundian in feel — look at today's 100-point monsters and shake their heads. Those structured 14.5-15% alcohol bombs with no Molinara are technically excellent but arguably less interesting as dinner companions. The acidity Molinara provided was functional architecture, not mere detail. There's also an oxidation problem that made winemakers nervous: Molinara's thin skins make it prone to rapid oxidation, which can manifest as off-notes in a wine that's not handled carefully. That gave cautious winemakers an excuse to drop it even as the regulatory change made it optional. The Vogadori rosé is the counterargument — carefully handled Molinara in a pale, fruity style avoids the oxidation pitfall entirely and delivers a genuinely delicious wine. Dal Forno Romano, notably, still includes Molinara in his Valpolicella Superiore Monte Lodoletta — a statement of traditional fidelity from one of the appellation's most revered producers.

Technical Deep Dive

Molinara is a highly aromatic, thin-skinned red variety producing wines of delicate cherry-red color — one of the lightest-colored red grapes in the Veneto. Its defining technical characteristic is acidity: fresh, bright, and persistent, making it a natural balancing agent in blends with the richer, fuller-bodied Corvina and Corvinone. Tannins are low-to-moderate. Flavor profile: fresh red cherry, forest berries, and light floral notes. When used in Amarone and Ripasso, it prevents the wine from becoming excessively heavy and alcoholic — the traditional recipe's checks-and-balances system. As a standalone wine it produces light-bodied, highly aromatic, refreshingly low-alcohol (typically 11.5-12.5%) wines that drink beautifully young. Prone to oxidation due to thin skins — requires careful handling at harvest and during vinification. For rosé production, its pale color and aromatic freshness are assets rather than liabilities. The variety is well-suited to the volcanic and alluvial soils of the Valpolicella Classico zone.

Industry Secrets

The complete disappearance of Molinara from most major Amarone labels has created an interesting gap in the market: a handful of terroir-driven producers are repositioning Molinara not as a blending grape but as a standalone variety with genuine identity. Vogadori is the most visible proponent of this, but the natural wine community has also taken notice — MORE Natural Wine features Molinara specifically, which signals its growing profile in that sector. The deeper industry secret is that traditional Valpolicella made with Molinara in the blend is structurally different — more food-friendly, lower alcohol, more intellectually interesting — than the modern mono-Corvina or Corvina-Corvinone dominant blends. Some traditionalists argue the current DOCG Amarone tastes categorically different from pre-2003 bottles because of this change. For wine historians and traditionalists, a bottle of old-style Valpolicella with proper Molinara inclusion is a document of what the appellation used to taste like.

More red grapes

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• Mondeuse
• Monica
• Montepulciano
• Montonico