Clean & Safe, post-COVID19 measures we adopt for our wine visitors

Appassimento in valpolicella

If you ask our customers, we have always adopted a different kind of approach to wine visits: small groups, slow pace through vineyards and cellars, focus on people involved in wine production,. A smart experience mixed of fine wines and food with arguments and insights about the complexity of Valpolicella wines.

Wineries are among the best places where recovering after the long lockdown: distancing is easy, there’s always enough room for everybody. Wine tastings are held where hygiene is long-time standard, and you can stay safely eating food in the opens or inside as well: distance is not a problem in a place that doesn’t need to squeeze people in small room for profit or convenience.

And being not-a-big-company (so: no employees) we can assure safe and clean approach in any aspects of the visit: the car, the winery or the restaurant.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we adopted an internal protocol that informs how we abide by the recommendations Public Health Authorities for its clients as well as for winery employees. These recommendations include: 

• sufficient personal protective equipment for everybody involved in all activities;

• stock of single-use cleaning materials, including single-use cleaning wipes moistened with disinfectant, bleach and alcohol at 70º;

• dispensers of alcohol-based antiseptic solution or alcohol-based solution;

• at the time of booking, customers will immediately receive via email: how to comply with basic precautions for prevention and infection control in relation to the coronavirus outbreak.

• social safety distance of 2 meters are maintained between customers and winery employees within the premises;

• two-thirds maximum occupancy of all transport in all tourism activities;

• compliance with internal hygiene and safety protocols by all partners involved in our activities.

This is our best effort to guarantee to everybody a “clean and safe” experience during winery visits in Valpolicella.

Recioto della Valpolicella vs Amarone: What’s the difference?

There’s a new piece by Chris Mercer written for Decanter wine magazine about the “two titans of Valpolicella”: Recioto and Amarone.

“Legend has it that Amarone was born after a Recioto fermentation was left too long.
Before fermentation, the two styles have a lot in common.
(…) Key to the process is the appassimento method. This involves drying out harvested grapes, which concentrates sugars and fruit flavours. Grapes will lose weight as water content evaporates.

(…) These days, grapes are more commonly dried in lofts in a more controlled environment; inevitably, though, some have rejected the introduction of new technology in the process.

Grapes must be dried until at least 1 December following harvest, but it often takes longer and fermentation may not begin until January or February”.

It worths reading, here.

Valpolicella, production data updates

It’s that moment during the year when public data about Valpolicella wine production are officially released. As usual, we collect them on annual basis and we provide the most complete among the (very few) available data sets on Valpolicella wines.

So, enjoy the collection we provide on this page.

Review: Amarone Leksikon app

Amarone della Valpolicella is a pretty successful wine all over the world, but having to deal with its many vintages in the market can be challenging. Is 2012 one better than 2014 or 2011 is the right one? Obviously, you can surf among the plenty of reviews on the web, reading tons of articles or posts about the vintages, but eventually, the final choice is yours: and what if you are in hurry? What if you have not all that time to inform yourself, and seemingly nobody is able to help you?

Well, actually there are at least 3 solutions to this problem.

The first one: have a look here... ;-)

Second solution: drop a line to us!  Write an email about your doubts about Amarone, and we’ll do our best to reply very quickly.

Third one: if you are just interested  to know more about some vintage in the last 10-15 years, downloading the Amarone Leksikon app might be a good idea.

The author, Bo Axman, has been an Amarone-lover for years. This app is the digital version of his book with the same title: here he gathered information about all the Amarone wines in the market - or at least all those he has been able to find - so in a glimpse you can have all the details you need: what grapes the wine is made with, who is the producer, where the winery is, etc. Most importantly, depending on the winery you are interested, you can have a score about some vintage of their Amarone - and writing yours, too. You can find the wine you are looking for, searching it by the label or the producer’s name. The wines are listed in alphabetical order.

The app is limited so far - there are currently more than 850 labels - because each and every year new producers enter the market, but it’s a good start anyway. Furthermore, the app is regularly updated.

You can download the app for your preferred smartphone here in the iOS Apple App Store or in the Android Google Play Store. The app is free, but it offers in-app purchases.