Valpolicella Wine Tours & Tastings: A Complete Guide to the Region

A Valpolicella wine tour is a guided visit to the wineries in the hills just north of Verona, where you taste the region’s famous reds — from fresh Valpolicella Classico to the powerful, dried-grape Amarone. A private tasting tour with a guide and sommelier typically lasts three to five hours, visits one or two cellars, and starts at around €250 per person. This guide explains the region, the wines, the best estates, and how to plan your visit.

Understanding Valpolicella

Valpolicella is not a single wine but a whole family, all built around the Corvina grape (alongside Rondinella and Corvinone) grown on the limestone and volcanic hills between Verona and the Lessinia mountains. The historic core, the Classico zone, sits in the western valleys of Fumane, Marano, Negrar, Sant’Ambrogio and San Pietro in Cariano — and this is where many of the most celebrated estates are found.

What makes the region unique is appassimento: the practice of drying grapes for months after harvest to concentrate their sugars and flavours before pressing. This single technique is what gives rise to Amarone and Recioto. For a deeper dive into the appellation and its history, browse our Valpolicella & Amarone guides.

The four wines to taste

A good Valpolicella tasting walks you through the full spectrum:

• Valpolicella Classico — light, fresh and cherry-driven; the everyday face of the region.
• Valpolicella Ripasso — “the baby Amarone”, re-fermented on the leftover Amarone skins for extra body and warmth.
• Amarone della Valpolicella — the icon: dry, powerful and complex, made entirely from dried grapes and aged for years.
• Recioto della Valpolicella — the sweet, historic ancestor of Amarone, and the wine from which it was born.

Tasting these side by side, with a sommelier explaining the differences, is the single best way to understand Veronese wine.

The best wineries to visit

Valpolicella spans the full range from tiny family cellars to globally revered estates. At the legendary end sit Giuseppe Quintarelli and Romano Dal Forno — both visit-by-appointment only, and both unforgettable. We arrange private access to each: see our dedicated guides to visiting Quintarelli and visiting Dal Forno.

For a broader first taste of the region, our Taste of Valpolicella tour visits carefully selected wineries across the appellation with a guide and sommelier — the ideal introduction if you don’t want to commit to a single estate.

Classico, Valpantena or the wider zone?

One distinction shapes what ends up in your glass, and almost nobody explains it before a first visit.

• Valpolicella Classico covers the five original valleys north-west of Verona — Negrar, Marano, Fumane, Sant’Ambrogio and San Pietro in Cariano. This is the historic heartland, with the steepest hillside sites and the longest winemaking tradition.
• Valpantena is a single valley directly north of the city, entitled to its own sub-denomination.
• The wider Valpolicella DOC extends east across the Illasi and Mezzane valleys, flatter in parts and cooler in others. Dal Forno works here, which is the clearest possible proof that “Classico” is a statement of geography rather than a ranking of quality.

For visitors, the practical consequence is time. Staying inside the Classico zone lets you see two estates comfortably in a half day. Reaching the eastern valleys generally makes it a full-day trip — worth it when the destination justifies the drive.

What it costs and how long it takes

Most Valpolicella tasting tours run three to five hours and cover one or two wineries:

• Half-day tasting tour (guide + sommelier): from around €250 per person.
• Tasting with lunch at the winery: around €250–€300 per person — our Sunday tasting with lunch is built around this relaxed format.
• Exclusive estate visits: quoted individually.

Going private means transport and tasting logistics are handled for you, so everyone in your group can taste freely.

When to go and how to plan

The vineyards are at their most beautiful in late spring and early autumn. September is special — it overlaps with the harvest and the start of appassimento, when the drying lofts begin to fill. For wider seasonal advice, see our guide to the best time to visit Italy.

A few essentials: book estates ahead (the best are appointment-only), let a guide handle the driving so you can taste, and leave time to pair the wines with local food. If you’re basing yourself in the city, our complete guide to wine tours in Verona shows how Valpolicella fits into a wider itinerary across Soave, Bardolino and Lake Garda. Staying on the lagoon instead? The region works as a day trip too — see wine tours from Venice.

Wineries you can visit in Valpolicella

Alongside the legends, several fine Valpolicella estates open their cellars, and Enouting arranges private visits and tastings at each:

• Masi — the Gargagnago winery that carried Amarone to the world.
• Tommasi — family-run in Pedemonte since 1902, with the giant Magnifica cask.
• Albino Armani — winemaking since 1607, at an estate in Marano di Valpolicella.
• Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde — 10,000 numbered bottles a year, high above Marano.

To understand what a sommelier actually adds to a day like this, read our guide to wine tasting with a sommelier.