Awesome amarone, an intoxicating, strong, sweet, dusky, herb and damson red, is one of Italy’s glories. Its hefty flavour makes it the perfect winter wine with big meat dishes and powerful cheeses. Yet for every great glass of amarone that I’ve tasted in the past decade, there have been one, if not two, decidedly nasty imitations.

Amarone comes from the pretty hills of the Valpolicella region that fan out behind Verona in northeast Italy. The amarone tradition here, making wine from partially dried grapes laid out on straw mats — or strung up on wicker shelves under the rafters — to concentrate the colour, flavour and tannin, began in Roman times.

Modern techniques of picking the ancient indigenous amarone grapes of corvina, rondinella and molinara, the same varieties that go into valpolicella, and placing them in drying rooms are more successful. It takes three months for the grapes to dry, and half their water content is driven off by this appasimento process. Given that the must is richer as a result, a long, slow maceration and fermentation of up to 60 days ensues. Amarone is then left to age in large Slovenian oak casks or small barriques.

Good amarone will set you back the best part of £20 a bottle, and the finest versions cost £40 and more. The Italians have tried to keep amarone standards up, but it is the most sought-after of the country’s dryer, dried-grape wines, and there has been a boom in production in the past decade. Growers now produce three times more amarone than they did at the beginning of the decade, up from 2.3 million bottles in l999 to 8.5 million so far in 2009.

There is good news, though, for amarone fanciers, as you can get some of the flavour for a lot less by buying a 2007 Valpolicella Ripasso, whose rich damson fruit is seasoned with spicy French oak (Marks & Spencer, £7.99). Amarone purists dismiss ripasso wines because they are fermented with amarone skins and sometimes with a portion of semi-dried amarone grapes, rather than being entirely vinified from them. Never mind.

Splash out on the real 15 per cent alcohol thing with the sweet, savoury, herby spice of Cantina di Negrar’s 2006 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico (Waitrose, £16.99). Older amarone is worth saving up for , and my vote goes to the fine, waxy, truffley Allegrini 2005 Amarone (Majestic Fine Wine, £45, and Laytons, £44.06).

THIS WEEK'S BEST BUYS

2008 Pinot Grigio, Venezie, Italy Asda, £3.98 Asda’s own-label Italians are some of the best on the block, including this lively, floral, grapey pinot grigio.

2008 Chianti, Tuscany Asda, £3.78 Enriched with a splash of merlot, this sangiovese delivers fine, spicy, leafy fruit with a bold, seductively bitter cherry finish.

2007 Réserve de la Saurine Vin de Pays du Gard, France Marks & Spencer, £5.99 Unoaked Rhône satellite with delicious grenache grape-dominant fruit.

2007 Chablis, La Chablisienne, France Marks & Spencer, £9.99 This elegant, lively, lemony chablis from a grand vintage is a triumph, just like its St Michael predecessors.

THE KEEPER

2007 Santenay Rouge 1er Cru Les Beauregards, Domaine Borgeot, France Laytons, 020-7235 1612, £19.34 Great red burgundy is, and always should be, a delicate, pale, pinot noir, whose floral, smoky elegance lingers on the tongue and in the mind, just like this premier cru from the fourth-generation Borgeot brothers, Pascal and Laurent. 2007 was a grand red burgundy vintage and even lesser wines such as this santenay from the Côte de Beaune will develop with some years yet in the cellar. Drink now until 2015.

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