Question Number 4
Amarone della Valpolicella?
No.
It's a relatively new darling of the wine world -- a very particular wine made from Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara (red grapes) that are dried on rack to concentrate their sugars, and then fermented until all the residual sugars are converted into alcohol. Long lived, powerful, and extremely complex, though with an element of sorrow -- Amarone means big bitter one, and makes sense when you stop to think that it derives from Recioto, which is sweet. In the past, Recioto was highly prized because sweet things were hard to come by; when the wine maker didn't manage to block the fermentation before the all sugars were gone, he found himself with a dry mistake, Amarone. Which, now that people prefer dry wines to sweet ones, is much more popular than its parent. In case you were wondering, I prefer Recioto.
