In this ten‑minute educational video, Deborah Parker Wong explains the complex geology and soils of the Valpolicella wine region in northern Italy. She begins by pointing out the ubiquitous Lacinia (prune) stone in Verona’s streets and architecture, clarifying the local use of the term “marble” for polished limestone. She then outlines the region’s deep geological history: the Alpine chain formed by the collision of the African and Eurasian plates, and the older marine deposits laid down over 200 million years when the area was a sea, creating layers of limestone, sandstone, and fossil‑rich material. Wong describes the principal soil and stone types—calcareous sandstone, pneumolithic (galena) limestone, basalt, rhyolitic tuff, Lessinia stone, Biancone, Rosso Verona (red ammonite limestone), oolitic limestone, and gray limestone—detailing their locations and characteristics. She groups the soils into four main categories: central limestone matrices, the young alluvial soils of the Adige River, volcanic rocks in the north‑east, and colluvial deposits on terraces. The video highlights the dry‑stacked stone walls (muraugne) that line terraced vineyards, using them as a visual record of the underlying geology. Finally, Wong connects soil depth and composition to wine styles—shallow limey clays on high slopes, finer limey clays and gravels on terraces, sandier alluvial soils near the river—and suggests a visit to the Prehistoric and Paleontology Museum in Sant'Andrea (north of Negrar) for further learning.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Deborah Parker Wong, here with 10 Minutes on Terroir. Today we're talking about the soils of Valpolicella. The first place you might encounter the terroir of Valpolicella is in the streets of Verona. Here's the Via Mazzini, and this street is paved with prune or Licinia stone. You can also find this stone used in the arena and the churches of Verona as well, too. Lacinia stone takes its name from the Lacinia Mountains, where the wine-growing region of Valpolicella runs from west to east across 7 main valleys. Geologists use the term marble to refer to limestone that has been transformed by pressure and heat, or metamorphosized. Marble is a metamorphic rock. But stonemasons here refer to any limestone, which is a sedimentary rock, that can be polished as marble. Today I'm using the geological terms. So here's a look at beautiful layers of white, pink, and reddish leucinia stone. The colors you see here are from iron and manganese. There's also red clay that's formed between these layers. And when this material is exposed to the elements, it oxidizes and it starts to lighten up over time. This is just one example of the complex geology of Valpolicella. So let's look at the origin of its geology. Here we see Italy's major mountain ranges, the Alpine chain, which includes the Lessini and of course Valpolicella, and the Southern Alps, the spine of Italy, were formed by the collision, the overlapping, and the upheaval of the African and Eurasian plates. But the formation of the parent materials occurred long before the mountains existed, and they were formed when the region was underwater. A large sea covered this area, and marine deposits were laid down that include ammonites, shells, marine animals like sea urchins. They were deposited in layers on the muddy seafloor, and these layers built up over a period of 200 million years, from the Triassic to the Miocene, as you can see in this slide. At that point, the movements of the Earth's crust, the collision of these 2 plates, and some underwater volcanic eruptions worked to harden the seafloor and and forced the mountains upwards, thus the creation of the Lessini. This slide shows us the soil layers that form the parent materials of Alpe Lacella, and they're really fascinating. I'm not going to touch on every soil type, but I'm going to talk about a couple of them here for you. The sandstone we see at the top, the calcareous sandstone, is the youngest soil type. We find this in San Pietro in Cariano. There's an ancient quarry site there at Materona, lying between Between 2 streams, the stream of Morano on the east and the stream of Fumane on the west. Pneumolithic limestone is interesting because it was formed by coiled fossils called pneumolites. It's gray and white, and it can be yellow, and when it is, it's called Galena Stone, and that's commonly found on the ridge that separates Negrar from neighboring Valpetena to the east. We have to talk about the igneous soil types, and the compact basalt and the rhyolitic tuff. Those soils are found in the north-central part near Negrar, but primarily in the eastern part of Valpolicella, in the Valpolicella Orientale. And we'll talk specifically about that. The pruned soil, which we saw earlier, the Lessinia stone, is now currently being mined at a place called Monte Latta, and there's 73 different layers of stone with names, thicknesses, and qualities. So it's an extraordinary material. Biancone was also formed around the same time, and it's the exact opposite. It's a milky white limestone with no fossils, and you see it on very soft slopes— would be the parent material on the soft slopes. Probably the most famous stone from this region is called Rosso Verona. It's a red ammonite. And ammonites— I've shown you a picture here— are beautiful nautilus-like shells. And it's not officially a marble; it's a fossilized limestone, and it's very beautiful and decorative. The oolitic limestone comes in the area that's most well known for that is Lake Garda. The southern area of Monte Baldo. And then the gray limestone, which is the oldest, is near Rovereto, right? And that is north of Negrar, and it's gray because of all the organic matter that was there during its formation. So enough geeking out on soil types. Here we go. So let's look at These are the 4 main soil types of Valpolicella that kind of give you an idea of, you know, where wine growing is going to occur. On this slide you can see that— let me get my marker going here— you can see that the limestone matrices are here kind of in the central part, and those include all the different limestones we just looked at. The youngest soils of course are those from the Adige Alluvial. The Adige River has deposited soils here in the southern part of the Classico region. And then And then the river alluvials from the creeks, the prugne, that run down through the valleys, and these are the youngest soils. And here you can see the volcanic rock soil up here in Negrar, in the northern part over here, and then scattered throughout the eastern part of the Valpolicella Orientale. My next slide is the dry stacked stone walls, or the muraugne, that form the terraced vineyards in Valpolicella. These walls are really an ideal way to study the geology of the sites where located. We see similar walls in Puglia and Burgundy and even in Ireland. You can really see the complexity of the terroir in the rock composition of these walls. In the Upper Valpolicella, we also see fences made of stone slabs as well too. This is a wall we would find in the west. This is the pruner, Lacinia stone. In the east, there's more red ammonite and those igneous soils, basalt and rhyolitic tuff, which is compressed ash. Actually, I have an example of that for you as well. This This shows a beautiful dry-stack wall at Cantina Negrar. It's just 10 minutes from the ancient quarry of Prune, and it shows the incredible craftsmanship of the stonemasons using several different patterns. The cut vertical stones here at the top, they're there for stability, and then you see this beautiful fishbone pattern as well too, but there's about 4 or 5 different patterns combined in there. This wall shows the Biancone, and we know that this is from the Classico region because of these large limestone slabs that are used to create the wall. So, this really high-quality material that's been put into this wall. Here's some examples of basalt, the black stone on the left, and the rhyolitic tuff there on the right. You would see this type of material used in the walls in the eastern part of the region. So with regard to wine growing, of course we know that at higher elevations the soils are going to be very shallow, and we're going to have limey clay soils over the parent material. On the lower slopes and terraces, we're going to see this colluvial material. You can see it formed here, colluvium at the bottom of the slope, all along the terrace, this first level of terrace here. What we're looking at are material that's been washed down by gravity and by the streams. All this channel erosion— the soils are fine limey clay soils. They can have some medium to small gravel in them. Then you're going to see that same material deposited on the lower terrace as well, too. So these are the primary soil types, but as we get down to the valley floor and closer to the Adige, or in the southern part of the region, you'll have more alluvial soils, which are sandier, siltier soils. And of course, we can infer the wine styles that will be coming from those soils as well too. So if you want to learn more about the soils of Valpolicella, I'd recommend a visit to the Prehistoric and Paleontology Museum that you'll find in Santander. Delgado, which is north of Negrar. I'll see you there. Thanks very much. Bye.
