Why it matters
The producer
Tommasi Viticoltori is a fourth-generation family estate in Valpolicella Classica, the hillside heartland of the Valpolicella appellation west of Verona. The name is most associated with Amarone: a dried-grape red that is the defining wine of this zone and the wine around which the estate has built its 242 hectares of vineyards. Nine siblings and cousins each hold defined roles in the business and manage it jointly, an arrangement that has kept decision-making in family hands across more than a century of winemaking.
The Valpolicella holdings are the core: 115 hectares in Valpolicella Classica, where the Amarone crus sit, and 17 more in Valpantena. A further 110 hectares lie across other Veronese denominations, including the Garda shore at Desenzano del Garda, where Tommasi grows the Turbiana grapes for Le Fornaci Lugana. The two wines, Amarone and Lugana, cover nearly opposite ends of the estate's stylistic range.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Valpolicella Classica is the original, hillside zone of the Valpolicella denomination, running west of Verona across a series of narrow valleys. The Classica designation matters on a label because it points to the older, higher-altitude parcels rather than the flatter, extended-zone vineyards added to the denomination later. Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG is the zone's most demanding wine: grapes are harvested, dried for months to concentrate their sugars, then fermented fully dry to produce a powerful red with high alcohol and a characteristic bitter edge on the finish.
Desenzano del Garda, where Le Fornaci is grown, is a town on the southern shore of Lake Garda, roughly forty kilometres west of Verona. The Lugana DOC runs along that southern shoreline. The lake moderates temperature swings, and the Turbiana grape, which carries the Lugana appellation, produces a white wine with more weight and texture than most northern Italian whites.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Appassimento is the cellar method that separates Amarone from every other Italian red. After harvest, the Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Oseleta grapes from La Groletta and Conca d'Oro are laid out to dry for approximately three months. Water evaporates, sugars concentrate, and the grape skins begin to develop the complex dried-fruit and spice compounds that will define the wine's nose. Fermentation in stainless steel runs for 25 days at 25 to 30 degrees Celsius, long enough to convert the concentrated sugars fully dry. The wine then moves to 35-hectolitre Slavonian oak casks for three years. The large-format casks add a slow, oxidative breath without loading the wine with new-oak flavour.
Le Fornaci follows a different logic. The Turbiana grapes ferment and then spend approximately three months on the lees and fine yeasts in tank before moving to stainless steel for maturation. Lees contact builds texture and a faint creaminess without oak influence, keeping the wine's fruit and mineral character upfront.
Wines to know
The range in view
Tommasi names four wines as the essence of its Valpolicella Classica range: Amarone, Ripasso, Rafaèl and Amarone Riserva.
The Amarone della Valpolicella Classico DOCG is the flagship. Dried for three months and aged three years in large oak, it is a full-bodied red with preserved-fruit richness, bitter spice, black pepper, liquorice and cocoa in the nose and a dry, substantial palate. A review of the 2018 vintage noted fine-grained tannin, freshness, savouriness and concentration, with the kind of compact, layered build that points to long-term ageing.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Amarone della Valpolicella Classico DOCG. It combines Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Oseleta from La Groletta and Conca d'Oro, dried for three months, fermented fully dry, and aged three years in large Slavonian oak. The glass delivers dark dried fruit, black pepper and bitter chocolate on the nose, then a full palate with firm tannin, ripe fruit and a long, dry finish. The bitterness on the finish is characteristic of the variety and the method. This is a wine to drink with food or to cellar; it does not open up immediately, but a few years of bottle age bring out the dried-fruit complexity and soften the tannin without losing the wine's density.