Musella, Amarone della Valpolicella

SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch has spent a lot of time in the Valpolicella region of Italy’s Veneto, where Amarone della Valpolicella remains the showy red-wine headliner. The tradition of drying grapes after harvest (to concentrate their sugars) dates to Roman times, but these days the challenge is to find a balance between concentration/sweetness and drinkability.Over my many years of selling Italian wine, I’ve tended to reserve Amarone della Valpolicella for lovers of the richest, ripest red wines of the world—California Zinfandel drinkers and Aussie Shiraz drinkers are among the prime candidates for the Amarone experience, but even those with more light-leaning palates might occasionally be seduced by this most voluptuous of Italian reds. We’ve had many subscribers ask us why we don’t offer more Amarone wines, and I think of my own wine-drinking habits in formulating my answer: Much as I appreciate these often-profound wines, I sometimes struggle to find the right applic