Best Italian wines from the veneto

[endlesslyrepeating]

Love amarone, have you had any particularly good ones you’d recommend or any other reds from the region? Drink a fair bit of ripasso too but looking for ones we haven’t tried.

This is a difficult question to answer, as Amarone and ripasso are both actually quite atypical of the Veneto region because the vinification processes produce warm-climate style wines in a cool climate region; most reds from this part of Italy such as Bardolino or Valpolicella are quite light, low in alcohol, and best drunk young and even slightly chilled.

If you want the very full-bodied high alcohol complexity of Amarone then you'll need to look to warmer regions which produce wines like this naturally. Within Italy itself that basically means Puglia or Sicily; while Calabrian wine is also rich and big it is next to impossible to find in the UK outside of a specialist. There are a number of Sicilian producers making reds in a ripasso style - Aldi actually does quite a good one under its Fire Tree label although they're out of stock in most places now.

If you can look outside Italy, for my money the closest styles come from the Douro region of Portugal - made from the same grapes as port but unfortified.

That’s interesting, I love port too. Thanks for the tips, funny that ripasso and amarone are atypical of veneto!