Allegrini

Before Allegrini, Valpolicella was a punchline — a name on a cheap bottle, thin and forgettable. This is the estate that decided the hills deserved better and proved it.

Allegrini farms the high ground of Veneto, in and around Fumane, in the historic core of Valpolicella Classico — the original hills northwest of Verona, not the flat expansion zones that later borrowed the name. The grapes are the local trio, led by Corvina with Corvinone and Rondinella alongside. What the family did with them changed the region. While Valpolicella was still shorthand for jug wine, the Allegrinis started treating individual hillsides the way Burgundy treats a named slope — bottling single vineyards, cutting yields, rethinking how the grapes were grown and dried. The wines that followed made people take the whole appellation seriously again.

The family that rewrote the rules

Take the long view first, because it explains the wine. The Allegrinis have grown grapes in Valpolicella for generations, but the estate you drink today was built in the last half-century, when the family stopped following the region and started leading it. The vines were replanted off the traditional overhead pergola toward tighter, lower-yielding training. The best hills were farmed and bottled as individual crus. Appassimento — the old drying technique behind Amarone — was cleaned up and modernised without losing its soul.

Two names carry the modern story: Franco Allegrini, the winemaker whose hand shaped the style, and Marilisa Allegrini, who took the wines to the world. The ambition never wavered — make Valpolicella a fine-wine region, not a bulk one — and the rest of the appellation has spent decades catching up.

Allegrini treated Valpolicella's hills like grand cru before anyone else would. The region followed.

The wines

Short version: they make the full Valpolicella arc, from a bright everyday red to a monumental dried-grape flagship, and they do each rung well.

Start with the Valpolicella Classico. Fresh grapes, no drying, all sour cherry and Alpine herbs and easy drinkability. It's the honest way into the house and the wine that shows you what these hills taste like before the winemaking gets clever. Don't overlook it — this is the bottle you actually open on a Tuesday.

Palazzo della Torre is the one to know. It's the estate's brilliant middle wine: mostly fresh grapes, but with a portion of dried fruit added back to ferment a second time, which gives it richness and grip without the full weight and price of Amarone. Pound for pound it may be the smartest buy in the whole range — Amarone's depth in a wine you can drink young and often.

The single-vineyard reds are the estate's signature. La Grola, off the hill it's named for, is the flagship of the idea that started it all — a serious, structured red built to show what one great slope can do. Above it sits the rarest bottling, a single-vineyard wine made from Corvina alone, the family's purest statement of place.

And then the Amarone. Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is the flagship and the reason many people first find the name — the big, warming, dried-grape red that is Veneto's calling card, made only from the best bunches laid out to shrivel for months before they're pressed. It's dense, dark-fruited, high in alcohol, built for cold nights and slow food. The special-occasion wine, and a benchmark for the style. The single-vineyard Amarone Riserva, Fieramonte, is the estate reaching for the very top — made only when the vintage earns it.

The setting

Half the pleasure here is the ground itself. The Classico hills fold and rise above the Verona plain, warm on their south faces, cooler up high, and it's that swing that gives the wines their perfume and lift. Fumane sits in the thick of it. This is a working landscape of terraced vineyards and drying lofts, not a manicured showpiece — though the family does keep one showpiece all the same.

Visiting

The move is Villa della Torre. The family owns a 16th-century Renaissance villa in Fumane — grottoes, formal gardens, fireplaces carved as monstrous faces — and it doubles as their hospitality home. This is not a walk-in cellar door: tastings and guided visits are arranged ahead, so treat the booking as the part to sort first, then plan your Valpolicella day around whatever slot you get. It's one of the more atmospheric places to taste in all of Veneto, and worth the small effort of setting it up. Confirm the current format on the estate's own site before you travel.

Can't get to Fumane? These wines travel well and turn up on good lists and shelves worldwide — buying a bottle is the reliable way to meet the estate.

What to buy

Match the bottle to the occasion. For everyday drinking, the Valpolicella Classico is fresh, honest and deeply useful with dinner. For the cleverest value in the range, reach for Palazzo della Torre — Amarone's depth at a fraction of the ceremony. To see what put Allegrini on the map, chase a single-vineyard red like La Grola. And when the night calls for it, the Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is the estate at full stretch — the wine the whole reputation rests on.