All that said, it’s always helpful to take a step back and re-explain what Amarone is and why it tends to be expensive. The term ‘Amarone’ describes the style of wine, while ‘della Valpolicella’ refers to its source vineyards in the Valpolicella region. The Valpolicella DOC zone begins in the hills north of Verona, in Italy’s Veneto, and runs up into the Lessini Mountains, a pre-Alpine range that also marks Veneto’s border with Trentino to the north. Red wines carrying the name ‘Valpolicella’ are spicy, dark-toned, dry reds made from a blend of local grapes headlined by the Corvina variety, but Amarone della Valpolicella is a vastly more concentrated red derived from withered batches of those same local grapes; to make Amarone-style wines, producers dry their grapes for several months after harvest to concentrate their sugars and produce a richer wine. This drying process, called appassimento, can stretch into February or March after the harvest, with the grapes losing as much as 40% of their total weight (much of it water) in the process. The economics of Amarone are straightforward: It’s a more labor-intensive wine, and there’s less of it, so it costs more.

Within this realm, Vaona has become known for fantastic value: This is some of the most affordable Amarone out there, but it didn’t get that way by skimping. The Vaona family has been growing grapes and making wine in the village of Marano di Valpolicella for hundreds of years, even though the family name on a label didn’t come until much later: They had sold wines in bulk prior to 2000, when they refurbished both their vineyards as well as the family’s 17th century cellar to begin producing their own wines. The current Vaona at the helm is winemaker/proprietor Alberto, who has overseen the conversion of the family’s 10 hectares of vineyards to organic viticulture. He uses only traditional Valpolicella varieties in his blend for “Paverno” (Corvina 40%; Corvinone 30%; Rondinella 25%; Molinara 5%), fermenting the wine on indigenous yeasts and aging it for 30 months in a mixture of French and Slavonian oak barrels of varying sizes (all used).

As I noted above, Amarone wines vary in terms of richness and weight; the oak barrels used for aging can have some impact on this, but mostly it reflects how concentrated the fruit was when it was harvested, and how long it was dried before pressing (obviously the longer it’s left to wither, the more concentrated the juice becomes). As the grapes wither during the drying process—with the bunches placed in crates that are stacked in temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms—they are mostly losing water. There’s a dramatic increase in sugar without a corresponding decrease in acidity, and the perception of most drinkers is that Amarone is somehow ‘sweet.’ In fact, the maximum amount of residual sugar allowed in an Amarone ranges from 12-16 grams/liter, depending on the final alcohol content. This is not, in any technical sense, a ‘sweet’ wine. The name ‘Amarone,’ in fact, is derived from the Italian word amaro (‘bitter’), as the style originated when a barrel of the original sweet wine of Valpolicella, known as recioto, fermented to dryness on its own.

Vaona’s 2014 “Paverno” is judicious in its proportions, with just 7 grams of residual sugar lending a glycerol-rich feel to the texture but nothing that could be construed as ‘sweetness.’ The lush extract of the wine tends to mask some of the wine’s well-structured tannins, making it approachable as a young wine, but don’t be fooled: This wine has all the makings of a marathon ager, blessed as it is with the full range of preservative elements—elevated alcohol, residual sugar, tannin, and plenty of acid. In the glass, it’s an opaque purple/black/ruby with garnet and pink highlights at the rim, with powerful aromas of black plum, blueberry compote, Chambord liqueur, resin, leather, baking spices, and toffee. There’s a palpable viscosity on the full-bodied palate, balanced by nice freshness and a finishing bite of tannin. The biggest thing to remember with Amarone is service temp: Decant it an hour before service and keep it either in your cellar or someplace where you can keep it close to 60 degrees (that includes the refrigerator, if necessary). Given its higher alcohol, the difference between 60 and 70 degrees in this instance is exponential. With the alcohol ‘heat’ properly tamed, it’s as lush and seductive as red wine gets—and it needs something similarly luxurious to stand up to it. Pair it with a wine-soaked braise and embrace the hedonism this pairing represents. It’s contagious!