Grape Variety: Corvina

Colour: Red

Corvina is a deep dark, thick-skinned, spicy red grape grown in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is a key ingredient in Bardolino and Valpolicella wines, which often taste of cherries, nuts, and strawberries. This grape may also be dried to produce higher-quality Ripasso and excellent Amarone wines.

Marinella Camerani looks the best expression of terroir in her wines using Corvina as well as Rondinella and Molinara. Ripasso wine has been traditional in the Veneto for a long time. The best young Valpolicella is put into tanks or barrels that still contain the lees of the recioto for which they were previously used. When mixed with the young wine, active yeast cells in this sediment precipitate a second fermentation increasing the alcoholic content and giving the wine a bitter-sweet recioto character as well as a smooth chocolatey texture. The grapes that make this wine come from southerly exposed 30 year old vines. Traditional vinification techniques and the use of 308 gallon cherry wood oak barrels, in which the wine ages for 24 months, confer intense ripe morello cherry flavours and plummy mouthfeel.

Jack the Ripasso for a momento and gear your gums for the slightly porty Amarone made from half-shrivelled grapes. A wine which falls firmly into the “impegnativo” category, this is beauty and the beast rolled into one: chewy plums, bitter cherries, mocha coffee and what Oz Clarke describes rather well as “bruised sourness”. The grapes are sourced from various sites with an average altitude of 300 metres and dried in a south-facing breeze-cooled drying loft in small wooden crates, eventually pressed towards the end of February. The cold winter temperatures, the long period of fermentation on the skins (over a month) and the use of wood during vinification encourage the development of the wine’s unique aromas. Braised beef in Amarone, Lepri in Salmi, or mature Monte Veronese cheese are your supping partners with this supernaculum.