Grape Variety: Molinara

Colour: Red

Has several synonym names including Rossanella, Uva Salata and Vespone. Acidic red wine variety mostly grown in the Veneto region of Italy and used to create the “Valpolicella” and “Bardolino” blends, along with the Rondinella and Corvina grape wines.

Marinella Camerani at Corte Sant’Alda still plants Molinarna and uses it in blends. Valpolicella “Ca Fiui”, (named after an ancient hillside settlement nestling amongst vineyards and olive trees) a pleasantly juicy red from Corvina Veronese, Rondinella and Molinara grapes with a nice rasp of acidity. Harvesting is done manually; grapes are then fermented partly in truncated cone-shaped oak vats, where maceration lasts roughly 15 days. The 2001 vintage of this bore an unnerving resemblance to a Marcillac. Try with cotechino sausage, rabbit, mixed boiled meats and other staples of Veronese cuisine.

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.