The famous “Recioto della Valpolicella” that we all remember among the most famous vines of Valpolicella, and among the most appreciated at international level, has a very long history. Marco Accordini, from Azienda Agricola Accordini Stefano, the first winery in Valpolicella to produce high quality mountain wines, talked us about it.
The history of Acinatico begins in the fourth century after Christ. Cassiodorus, minister of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, in a letter to the landowners of the current Valpolicella asked to have for the royal table the wine obtained with a special technique of drying the grapes, called Acinatico at the time and defined by the most important connoisseurs of wine “winter must, cold blood of the grapes”. It was exactly the first true ancestor of the Recioto.
In the following centuries, official documents and the writings of the humanists of the time show how the presence and adoration of Acinatico wine continued and became more and more important with the passage of time. In 1177 a decree of the emperor Federico Barbarossa formalized the name “Valpolicellae” (vallis polis cellae, valley of the “many cellars”) that identifies the area of production of the prestigious Acinatico, increasingly requested by the aristocratic class of the whole empire. An estate of 1503 attests, for example, that the area of Valpolicella Classica, was a rich and famous valley thanks to its wines, fame that continued until 1936.
The Accordini family decided for its production to transform Acinatico into a registered trademark to identify its three best wines, Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso, Amarone della Valpolicella Classico and Recioto della Valpolicella Classico, enhancing its history. The choice made by the Accordini family back in 1988 was made with the aim of remembering the real traditional wine production in the ancient area of the Valpolicella Classica. The same term Acinatico turns out to be of Latin origin and means etymologically “wine born from the berries” (acina = berry, natico = born) and represents the link between the ancient wine so much praised by Teodorico and the traditional technique of wine production in Valpolicella by the Accordini family.
There are several awards received by the company regarding Acinatico, for example the bronze medal Decanter in 2018, where Accordini Stefano, Acinatico 2015 Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso was awarded with 89 points out of 100, or the prize “I Vini di Veronelli 2019 “, where Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Acinatico 2014 was awarded 94 points out of 100, ranking as” Super 3 stars “.
