The amazing women of Amarone

“A good Amarone is like no other red wine in the world,” writes wine expert and author Matt Kramer. “You get scents and tastes of perceived cherries, various fruits, whiffs of licorice and tar, along with swirls of spices. It’s an austere wine. It demands — and rewards — attention.”

Americans sometimes confuse Amarone della Volpolicella Classico — its full name — as a sweet wine. In ancient times, wine varietals from the Valpolicella valley in Italy’s Veneto region, paticularly Recioto della Valpolicella, were sweet. But the word Amarone itself translates into the “sweet bitter.”

Leave it up to the Italians to produce such a complex wine that fills the mouth with layered tastes of black berries, mint, earth and then tails off into a divine stream of plum, chocolate, coffee, nutmeg and white pepper.

Amarone is a serious, formidable wine. It is described as the “big boy” of reds, built on a 15 to 17 percent alcohol content, and goes wonderfully with game, roasts, wild duck and goose, and anything with a sausage stuffing. Kramer, in his book Making Sense of Italian Wine, recommends it in a simple, powerful statement: “Don’t die without trying it.”

So why is this wine so good and, quite frankly, expensive?

Amarone is made from up to four Valpolicella grape varieties: Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara, Corvinone and Oseleta. Only the best grape clusters are selected and picked to withstand a withering process — called raisination — that takes up to six months. The dried grapes they are then double pressed which produces a highly concentrated juice. It takes up to 40 pounds of grapes to make one bottle of Amarone, as opposed to three pounds for most other wines.

The juice is aged for three years in either steel or cement tanks, as well as oak barrels, before it is bottled and left to age for another year. That’s four years of work!

A good Amarone reaches its peak from six to 15 years after bottling and can endure for up to 30 years.

Recently, I attended an Amarone tasting of 12 wines in Boston at the Consulate General’s Office of Italy, located on the 17th floor of the Federal Reserve Building.

Sadly — but responsibly — I focused on three that caught my attention involving the “Women of Amarone,” the daughters who are taking key roles in the vineyards with their parents and siblings in creating enduring wines.

• Musella’s 2008 Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva — Maddelena Pasqua was upset she was missing the October harvest back home in Verona, working the vineyards with her father Emilio, 70. “It’s stress for me not being there, feeling the grapes, smelling them, cupping the soil,” says the mother of two young sons. “If you truly enjoy wine, you enjoy the world and all that is in it. That’s the beauty of Amarone. It lets you put your nose in the flowers, the mountains, the air all around you.”

Maddelena works closely with her oenologist cousin Enrico and father to craft the Amarone. “Our strong connections to the land are in this wine. We are proud of it.”

She says the 2008 vintage. which sells for $50 a bottle, is made to last for 30 years. But why wait, she asks? “Wine is the best friend of food .. I consider a bottle of wine to be enjoyed, not to stay on the furniture or in the cellar as an ornament.”

• Begali’s 2008 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Monte Ca’ Bianca — Tiliana Begali says her family’s wine is aged for 56 months before it reaches consumers, a sign that this Amarone gets the care and attention it requires to be an elegant product. She likes the “soft, dry and intense flavors” that is manufactured from the “arte” of Amarone. Giordano Begali started the winery after World War II and now his son, Lorenzo, works the eight-hectare vineyard with his wife Adriana and daughter Tiliana. “There is a lot of pride in each bottle,” says Tiliana. This is a perfectly enjoyable wine with notes of black cherry and chocolate. It costs $60 a bottle.

• Capitel Monte lmi Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2007 — Maria Sabrina Tedeschi says her father Lorenzo, now 80, is a “good leader but not a boss” — meaning he is a patient and open-minded winemaker; he listens and learns from everyone who admires excellence in Amarone. She said the Tedeschi Amarone absorbs the “charateristics” of the land and grapes, which are monitored daily on the vine. “The most important work is done in the vineyard, preparing the grapes for the fermentation. If you have an excellent grape, you’ll produce an excellent wine,” says Maria, who is one of seven children working at the winery. The mother of two daughters, Maria studied at the University of Milan, taught school for 10 years, and found her way back to the family business in 2000. She now leads all the marketing efforts.

The Tedeschi Amarone is a prestigious wine and costs $90 a bottle.