Helping to set Amarone in its historical context was a seminar from Master of Wine and Verona native Andrea Lonardi, who recounted Amarone’s story through a series of wines dating back to Bolla’s 1950, originally intended for family use only (tasting notes for all masterclass wines can be found in the tasting notes below). Lonardi believes that Amarone – a wine of style, much like Champagne – can in fact be seen as having several birthdates. The first, in the 1950s, was followed by another in the 1990s, when northern European and North American markets drove the emergence of a big, soft wine not primarily intended for consumption with food. The lingering perception of food-unfriendliness was addressed in the masterclass from educator JC Viens, who explored the role of Amarone in fine-dining restaurants around the world, presenting a number of imaginative wine and dish pairings on menus at several restaurants making it onto the World’s 50 Best list.

Lonardi argued, somewhat provocatively, that the final birth period of Amarone is today, when stylistic divergence among producers has grown so great that the question of what Amarone actually is – a question I myself have explored before – seems increasingly valid. Many have tried to present the current style as a return to ‘traditionalism’, but this is arguably even more superficial here than in other Italian regions where similar claims are being made.

Lonardi pinpointed several key stylistic changes of the last century, many of which show that if dramatic changes distinguish the ‘first birth’ of Amarone from the second, the third isn’t simply a reversion to the first. For instance: sweetness, the absence of which was a defining trait of the original ’50s/’60s Amarone but the subtle presence of which bolstered the popularity of the ’90s model. A wine that was dry on the label but packed some secret sugar, 1990s Amarone seemed custom-designed to win fans in a wine world unused to the stark rigidity of most Italian reds. Given contemporary wine consumers’ flight from sugar, most producers have now disavowed residual sugar and today’s Amarone is trending far drier.

However, given the warming climate, this is only achievable through a serious rethinking of appassimento. Lonardi described appassimento’s shortening from 120 days – still not uncommon, at least among the five-to-six-year-old wines currently on the market – to 90 today, and perhaps as few as 60 soon. However, some research suggests that dramatically shortening appassimento may eliminate some of its more esoteric effects. Beyond concentrating sugars, acids etc., appassimento is a biological process and activation of certain genes in its later phases helps shift the chemical composition of the grapes. Despite a few much-touted exceptions – Bertani, where Lonardi used to be chief of winemaking, or Massimago, with its architecturally delightful hillside fruttaio traditional drying room] – fewer producers today are willing to leave appassimento to chance, with technological controls on ventilation and temperature increasingly ubiquitous.

The point of all these shifts is, of course, to fit Amarone into today’s fine-wine world and, just as crucially, fine-dining world, where Amarone is (I have noted) not immensely visible. When asked why this might be, Viens replied that some influential sommeliers described Amarone as ‘too powerful’, with the potential to ‘overwhelm dishes and dominate their pairing menu’, while adding that the actual Amarone wines they had listed were frequently not of that style. He was sanguine about the ability of a new range of styles to reignite the interest of sommeliers.

After all, Amarone producers have always had great sensitivity to market trends and willingness (and ability) to reimagine their wines. They are helped by the extreme flexibility of the Amarone Disciplinare (the DOCG’s governing document), which, for instance, permits the total substitution of the scarlet, delicate Corvina for the inky, structured Corvinone (not even a related grape, despite the similar names). An intriguing recent development is the explosion of Chinese interest in Amarone, just as North American markets – Amarone’s lifeblood – are growing complex. How this will impact the ‘third birth’ of Amarone remains to be seen; the only certainty is change.

The wines featured in this report include the wines presented at Amarone Opera Prima 2025 in masterclasses by JC Viens (Amarone: Iconic of Fine Dining in the World’s 50 Best) and Andrea Lonardi MW (The Memory of Time: A Journey Through the Historic Vintages of Amarone) alongside a selection of the top 2020 releases that admirably represent the ‘third birth’ of Amarone.