Red Grape · Veneto
Corvina is Verona's great shape-shifter: one sour-cherry grape that becomes light, chillable Valpolicella, richer Ripasso, powerful high-alcohol Amarone, or sweet Recioto, all decided by how long the bunches are dried.
Corvina is the main red grape of Verona's wine country. It is the backbone of Valpolicella DOC, Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG and Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG. The skins are thick, and the grape works in many styles. It gives light, cherry-bright reds for everyday drinking. It also gives the concentrated, long-lived wines of Amarone, where the grapes are carefully dried for months before they ferment.
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Before you buy
The anchor fact: These are not four grapes. Valpolicella, Ripasso, Amarone and Recioto are one Corvina blend from the same Verona hills, told apart entirely by the appassimento drying: how long the bunches are dried, and what is done with the skins.
Taste · Where it sits
Forget scores out of five. Here’s Corvina described against grapes you already know.
This is the widest body range in Italian wine: featherweight, chillable Valpolicella at one end and dense 16 percent Amarone at the other, from the very same grapes.
Never the fierce, gum-drying tannin of young Nebbiolo. Corvina's grip is softer and rounder, and in Amarone the appassimento drying coats it in sweet, raisined fruit.
A tart sour-cherry acidity is Corvina's signature, keeping even a powerful Amarone lively rather than jammy, closer in freshness to Sangiovese than to a warm southern red.
Valpolicella, Ripasso and Amarone all ferment bone dry despite their raisined scent. Only Recioto, where fermentation is halted, keeps the grape sugars for a genuinely sweet wine.
Key flavours
The map
Corvina is medium-bodied, moderate grip, mapped against other red grapes you can buy. The closer a grape sits, the more its weight and grip resemble Corvina.
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Serving guide
Serve at
12-15°C
The window is wide on purpose: chill a light Valpolicella toward the cool end, but serve a big Amarone warmer so its 15 percent alcohol reads as richness, not heat.
Decant
30 minutes
Half an hour in a decanter lets a young Ripasso or Amarone shed its spirituous, raisined top note and open into fruit.
Glass
Large Balloon Glass
A large balloon bowl gives a dense Amarone room to breathe and gathers its dried-cherry and chocolate perfume.
Drink within
3-5 days
The concentration and alcohol of a Ripasso or Amarone keep an opened bottle drinking well for several days; a delicate Valpolicella is best finished sooner.
Cellar
Up to 10 years
Fresh Valpolicella is for drinking young, but a serious Amarone will rest and deepen into leather and dried fig for a decade or more.
On the table
Start with the home-table matches that made the grape, then browse the full cuisine library.
The Verona home dish
Risotto all'Amarone is a Valpolicella classic: the wine's sweet dried-cherry fruit softens the bitter edge of Treviso radicchio while its acidity cuts the butter and cheese.
For a big Amarone
A high-alcohol, raisined Amarone has the weight to meet slow-braised venison, echoing the dish's dark, gamey richness with its own dried-fruit depth.
Ripasso's sweet spot
A medium-bodied Valpolicella Ripasso flatters lean roast pheasant: enough sour-cherry freshness to lift the bird, enough baby-Amarone body to match the roasting.
Pour a sweet Recioto
This is Recioto della Valpolicella's moment: the sweet dried-grape wine mirrors the pudding's raisins and spice, one appassimento echoing another.
Browse every pairing
Buy it · three to start with
A curated trio across the price range, then every Corvina on sale in the UK right now.
Entry · everyday
2 retailers
Valpolicella
2 retailers
£11.70
£14.78
Why this one: Speri is a benchmark grower, and this straight Classico shows Corvina undried: pale, light and full of fresh sour cherry, good even lightly chilled.
The sweet spot
1 retailer
Valpolicella Ripasso
1 retailer
£20.77
Why this one: The same estate, one rung up: this Valpolicella is re-fermented on the leftover Amarone skins (ripasso), gaining the plush, spiced body that earns it the baby-Amarone tag.
Special occasion
8 retailers
Amarone della Valpolicella
8 retailers
£93.00
Why this one: Bertani is one of Amarone's historic houses. Here Corvina is dried for months, then fermented bone dry, for the full raisined, high-alcohol statement wine.
12 of 248 bottles
8 retailers
Amarone della Valpolicella
8 retailers
£93.00
6 retailers
Valpolicella
6 retailers
£10.95
6 retailers
Verona/Veronese
6 retailers
£18.50
6 retailers
Amarone della Valpolicella
6 retailers
£27.61
6 retailers
Amarone della Valpolicella
6 retailers
£35.00
5 retailers
Valpolicella Ripasso
5 retailers
£26.00
£29.00
5 retailers
Amarone della Valpolicella
5 retailers
£60.00
5 retailers
Veneto
5 retailers
£74.13
5 retailers
Valpolicella
5 retailers
£84.13
4 retailers
Valpolicella Ripasso
4 retailers
£13.96
4 retailers
Valpolicella Ripasso
4 retailers
£16.55
4 retailers
Verona/Veronese
4 retailers
£19.00
Denominations
The appellations where Corvina plays a starring role.
Where it grows
Italy's largest wine region by volume, where Prosecco hills, Valpolicella ridges, and Soave's volcanic plain shape three different Italian classics.
The terroir
Corvina is a Verona grape, almost always blended with Rondinella and Corvinone across the hills north and west of the city. The same variety runs from lake-light reds to loft-dried blockbusters depending on where it grows and how it is handled.
Valpolicella Classica
The original hillside amphitheatre north of Verona: Negrar, Fumane, Marano and Sant'Ambrogio.
Corvina's heartland, where the calcareous hills give everything from fresh Valpolicella to the greatest Amarone.
Bardolino
The morainic hills on the eastern shore of Lake Garda, just west of Valpolicella.
The same Corvina blend at its lightest and palest, often chilled, and the source of the pink Chiaretto.
Amarone della Valpolicella
Not a vineyard but the fruttai, the airy drying lofts where the bunches rest for three to four winter months.
Where hillside Corvina loses roughly a third of its weight in water and concentrates into a 15 to 16 percent powerhouse.
Editorial
Corvina Veronese, often shortened to Corvina, is the most important red grape in the province of Verona. It is the grape that defines Valpolicella's wine system. DNA studies have not found a clear parent variety. Researchers at the Istituto di Genomica Applicata in Udine have confirmed that it is genetically distinct from Corvinone. Corvinone is sometimes labelled Corvina Grossa. It once grew alongside Corvina and is now classified separately.
Amarone begins as a drying process, not a riper vineyard. Corvina bunches rest on racks in airy lofts for three to four winter months, shedding roughly a third of their weight in water. That evaporation, not extra sun, is what concentrates the grapes into a 15 to 16 percent wine.
Valpolicella's appassimento traditionNearly all of the world's 6,200 hectares of Corvina grow in Veneto's Verona province. That is about 15,300 acres. The vineyards are on hillsides that run from Lake Garda east to the Val d'Illasi. Thick skins give the grape a natural resistance to botrytis. That makes it ideally suited to the appassimento method at the heart of Amarone and Recioto. After harvest, whole bunches are laid on bamboo racks in airy fruttai. There they lose up to 40 percent of their weight over 100 to 120 days. That concentration turns the grape's naturally high acidity and moderate tannins into the powerful, glycerine-rich structure Amarone is known for.
From fresh grapes, Corvina makes light-bodied reds that smell of cherry, with low tannins and bright acidity. That is the hallmark of entry-level Valpolicella. The Ripasso technique adds complexity. Valpolicella is re-fermented on the spent skins of Amarone, which gives wines of medium weight with dried-fruit spice. Corvina is almost always blended with Rondinella and, in traditional blends, Molinara. Even so, bottlings from Corvina alone, from producers like Allegrini with La Poja, have shown that the grape can excel on its own.
Key producers shaping Corvina's modern identity include Bertani, Masi, Allegrini, Tedeschi and Dal Forno Romano.
Good to know
Fresh Corvina gives light-bodied reds that taste of tart cherry, cinnamon and green almond. Dried for Amarone, the same grape turns to chocolate, leather and dried-fruit spice, with high tannins and alcohol of around 15 to 16%.
They are genetically distinct varieties, although the two were confused for a long time. Corvinone was once called Corvina Grossa. Corvina has smaller berries and higher acidity. Corvinone has larger berries, and it adds body and colour to Valpolicella blends.
Yes. Corvina Veronese is the formal name used in grape science for the grape commonly known as Corvina. Both names refer to the same variety, registered in Veneto's official vineyard census.
Lighter Valpolicella goes with pizza, antipasti and cured meats. Ripasso suits braised dishes and aged cheeses. Amarone is intense enough for grilled red meats, slow-cooked lamb and roasted porcini mushrooms.
Corvina's thick skins resist rot during the 100 to 120 day drying, the appassimento. So the grape can build up sugars and the compounds in its skins without spoiling. That makes it the ideal base grape for Amarone's powerful structure.
The traditional Valpolicella blend includes Rondinella and Molinara alongside Corvina. Modern rules also allow Corvinone up to 50%. Some producers use small amounts of Oseleta for colour and tannin.
Explore by style
Jump to the editorial guide for each style this grape turns up in.
Keep exploring
1,428 wines
41 denominations
