The future of Amarone and Valpolicella: opera, haute cuisine and market protection

The “Amarone in the Capital” event opened on May 22nd and continued through May 23rd presenting and renewing a more profound collaboration between the Consortium and the ICQRF - Central Inspectorate for Repressions of Fraud of the Ministry of Agriculture. The event took place in the Capital of Italy, Rome, at the beautiful Hotel Hassler overlooking the iconic Spanish Steps. The event expressed a closer link to Opera and the Verona Arena, as well as to haute cuisine in the “Eternal City” and many more, but also to institutions for the protection of International markets. The president of the Consorzio Vini Valpolicella, Christian Marchesini, pointed out, “ it is essential for Italian wine to be present abroad in a more compact way and under the umbrella of Italy. The cooperation, started in 2018 when an anti-counterfeiting and “Amarone sounding” task force was established to protect the Veneto Region’s main red wine denomination, both on the domestic and international markets. This new step in the collaboration provides for even stricter controls to protect the wines of the appellation, focused primarily on the web and on e-commerce, which need to be watched very closely considering also those channels’ strong growth in progress.
“This memorandum”, Felice Assenza, at the helm of the ICQRF / Central Inspectorate for Repressions of Fraud of the Ministry of Agriculture, said, “has become stronger today in a path focused on the web and everything that revolves around electronic commerce. It is an initiative that I would extend to all Consortiums, not only to protect the Italian product, but also in favor of the quality policy that has become increasingly central in Europe as well as in third countries. In 2020, we carried out 70.000 inspections in the food sector, and of these, 30% were in the wine sector. Our controls contribute to the added value of Made in Italy products”. Specifically, the renewed collaboration, explained Assenza, provides the novelty of introducing an interdisciplinary task force and an ongoing discussion on the objectives to be achieved. “Our web monitoring activity is facilitated by the fact that most of the big e-commerce players have signed collaboration agreements with us”. Christian Marchesini, president of the Consorzio Vini Valpolicella, further commented, “renewing the collaboration with ICQRF is essential in order to guarantee consumers the highest quality products, which we also export to twenty-six countries. It is, therefore, fundamental to protect and supervise our appellation wines”.
President Marchesini also emphasized the significance of restarting the Consortium’s promotional events from Rome, including two-day tastings and Masterclasses held on the Hassler terrace and its starred restaurant Imago, following almost three years of close down due to the Pandemic. “Amarone in Capitale”, he said, “gives us the opportunity to return to a dialogue with haute cuisine professionals and wine bars in Rome, the Eternal City, traditionally fascinated by our appellation wines. And, it is the prologue to the special preview, “Amarone Opera Prima”, the extraordinary event the Consortium has scheduled in Verona from June 17th to 20th, which will also be debut of an unprecedented collaboration with the Arena Foundation”. “It will be called “Amarone Opera Prima”, the president of the Consortium explained to WineNews, “because there will be a fundamental link with the Opera. Journalists and professionals from all over the world have been invited to enjoy the performance of Aida on Saturday evening. The Arena is one of the most important activities we have in Verona, and we will try to connect Amarone more and more to Opera, a link that has not been exploited so far. Moving the Preview to June is a great opportunity to present Amarone and the Opera under the starry sky of the Arena. Then, at the Preview we will have the new entry of the cooking show from a starred restaurant, including a tasting of four “top secret” dishes normally not paired with Amarone. In addition, there will be tasting of wines from the “boom” years of Amarone, and that is, the best vintages in the nineties of the twentieth century. Finally, on Sunday, tasting of the 2017 vintage, which connects all the wineries to the Preview”. Amarone della Valpolicella will be told in the glass and out. It is the number one wine of one of the most important denominations in Italy, boasting 600 million euros in turnover.