Learn about The Valpolicella Wine Region

Valpolicella is a set of parallel valleys descending south from the Lessini mountains to the Adige, north-west of Verona -- limestone hills, terraced vineyards, and marble under the whole of it.

Inhabited since the Palaeolithic and making wine since the Romans, Valpolicella passed from Verona's lords to Venice, filled with villas, and in the twentieth century built a global reputation on a technique -- drying the grapes -- that is centuries older than the wine now named for it.

The culture here is built around one technique -- appassimento, drying the grapes -- and around the villas, quarries and hill farms that shaped the valleys before the wine became famous.

Valpolicella is built in its own stone: terraced vineyard walls of dry limestone, farm courts and fruttai in the valleys, Renaissance villas among them, and Romanesque churches in pale marble on the ridges.

Valpolicella has a mild pre-alpine climate sheltered by the Lessini and warmed by Lake Garda's influence -- hot summers, cool winters, and the dry autumn air that the grape-drying depends on.