Amarone wine
Amarone Opera Prima 2025 is the premier annual event dedicated to one of Italy’s most renowned wines, offering a first taste of the latest vintage. Hosted in Verona on February 1 and 2, 2025, at Verona’s Palazzo della Gran Guardia, Amarone Opera Prima 2025 offers an exclusive preview of the 2020 vintage.
I won’t tell you about the wines I loved most at the Amarone 2020 vintage preview—because, let’s be honest, who cares?
Talking about a wine preview isn’t just about reading what’s in the glass; it’s about reading between the lines of a vintage, listening to the voices (and the silences) of producers, and observing the market.
And today, the future of Amarone moves between light and shadow.
Amarone Opera Prima
Amarone: 2024 statistics
Amarone closes 2024 down 2%, but the UIV Observatory also reports a 9% rebound in the second half of the year in the U.S. This sounds promising, but do we believe this signals a true recovery? Or is it just the result of a market stocked up in anticipation of Trump’s potential tariffs?
Strategic hoarding rather than real demand?
There’s an elephant in the room. We can’t ignore it anymore. Producers talk about “exceptional” wines, “global success,” and “icons” but then—quietly—admit the market is stagnant. Some are cutting prices to sell. Others are watching their warehouses fill up too quickly.
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire,” said Jean Jaurès. So I ask: is Amarone, as it has been until now, still the right answer for today’s consumer?
Just a point: today’s consumer wants fresher, more approachable wines with lower alcohol content. The wines I tasted had an alcohol content between 15° and 17°.
The analysis by UIV Obeservatory
The analysis commissioned by the Consorzio led the UIV Observatory to define a “new” buyer personas for Amarone: older consumers with an income well above $100k—at least in the U.S., one of its key markets. Ripasso for Millennials and Valpolicella for younger drinkers.
But Ripasso is struggling.
Valpolicella isn’t exactly thriving.
And Amarone risks losing itself—caught between myth and market.
So, what now?
Andrea Lonardi, vice president of the Consorzio Vini Valpolicella, says Amarone must become a fine wine, an icon. In plain terms: fewer bottles and higher prices.
Are we sure that’s the right path? Raising prices makes a wine more exclusive but not necessarily more desirable.
An icon isn’t built through a price tag but through a strong identity.
We always talk about pricing, markets, and customers. But shouldn’t we start from the ground beneath our feet? Climate change isn’t just a theory. It’s there in the wines I tasted last weekend, in increasingly hot vintages, in the alcohol that, in this just-sampled 2020 vintage, often feels overpowering.
Amarone: and the future?
Instead of thinking about a more expensive Amarone, shouldn’t we focus on a more “sustainable” one? (I don’t love that word, forgive me.)
One more in sync with today’s world?
If the sun gets too hot, water becomes scarce, and vineyards suffer, is our answer to raise prices and keep relying on appassimento?
Maybe it’s time to rethink the production rules. Maybe it’s time to look forward instead of locking ourselves in the past, convinced that pricing alone guarantees positioning.
