Recioto hails from Valpolicella in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy, about half an hour’s drive from Verona, the city where Romeo and Juliet fell in love.
If you are familiar with Italian wines, you may associate Valpolicella with Amarone. That’s right. Recioto and Amarone are both Valpolicellan and they’re both made from dried grapes, in the tradition of this region.
Upon harvest, Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella are not sent directly to the winery to be vinified. Instead, they’re first sent for drying.
The grapes are laid flat on the racks in an airy room for about three to four months to shrivel. The purpose is to reduce their water content, increase their sugar content and concentrate the flavours.
This process of grape drying in Italian is called appassimento.
In making Recioto, when the alcohol level reaches about 12%, the winemaker terminates the alcoholic fermentation (by chilling the wine so the yeasts become inactive and turn into lees, which are then filtered out). The sugar that has not yet been converted into alcohol adds sweetness to the wine, creating a sweet wine, a Recioto that is.
Sweet wines made from dried grapes share a generic name in Italian called passito.
Just so you know, Recioto contains about 50 grams of sugar per litre. Compared to 100 grams in a litre of cola, Recioto is way less sweet, but…still quite sweet already.
Flavours and Food Pairing
The 2019 Recioto from Negrar Winery, pictured below, shows aromas of candied plums, candied prunes and sarsaparilla. Serving temperature is up to your individual preference. If you like a little more bold aroma, try around 15 degrees Celsius; if you don’t want it to be too lusciously sweet, enjoy it right out of the fridge.
As for food pairing, Recioto is ideal to pair with desserts. The key to pairing desserts with sweet wine is that the wine must be at least sweet as the dessert, otherwise the sweetness of the wine will be lost when you taste it after having the dessert. An analogy is that your chocolate milk won’t taste as delicous and sweet when you have it after an ultrasweet doughnut.
When pairing desserts with sweet wine, it’s important to be aware of the difference of sweetness between the two.
Recioto also pairs well with blue cheese, such as Gorgonzola from Italy or Stilton from the UK. The sweetness of the dessert wine pairing with the savouriness of the cheese can create an interesting salted caramel-like flavour. The sweet wine can also round out the pungency of the blue cheese. If you’re a fan of blue cheese, you might want to give this riveting combination a try.
[The Recioto Episode on my YouTube Channel👇👇]
