At Home in Verona
Why I moved to this corner of Italy
This new year is momentous for me: I'm starting it in my new home of Verona, Italy.
A couple of months ago, my wife and I moved from the south of France, where we had lived nearly 15 years. Why? Why not? Doesn't everyone want to live in Italy? Despite its problems, Italy has some of the world's most beautiful places, my favorite cuisines, a very agreeable lifestyle and an ever-dynamic wine scene.
Verona, a city of 250,000 straddling the Adige River, isn't as cosmopolitan as Milan, but it is in the modern North. Importantly, things tend to work here. The trash gets picked up. The place has a civilized feel, typified by the sometimes-dapper men and the often-elegant women riding bicycles along cobblestone streets in which most cars are banned.
Verona is also heart-stoppingly beautiful—laced with Roman vestiges, including its impressive 1st-century Roman arena, along with well-preserved medieval and Renaissance palaces, towers and churches.
Our first dinner invitation came through family friends. "The Veronesi drink too much!" proclaimed our hostess, who originally hailed from Emilia-Romagna. Her husband, an Abruzzo native, confirmed the observation. Ironically, the dinner conversation was dominated by wine. This happens a lot in Verona. In my experience so far, you can't do anything here-buy a rug or get a quote on car insurance-without talking wine. Everybody, it seems, is a relative or close friend of someone who makes wine.
Verona is a capital of Italian wine and home to the country's most important wine fair—the sprawling Vinitaly held here every spring. The local scene is dominated by Valpolicella, a light, fresh red. The star is powerful Amarone della Valpolicella, made from grapes dried for months in large barns before fermentation. Also nearby are the regions of Bardolino and Soave, and at the other end of the Veneto, the heart of Prosecco.
Verona is big on aperitivo culture. On a sunny day in the city's expansive Piazza delle Erbe—with its brick towers, frescoes and sprawling cafes—the air seems to glow gold and orange from hundreds of glasses of sparkling wine and the ubiquitous Prosecco-based cocktail, the Aperol spritz.
One of Italy's venerable wine institutions is the Antica Bottega del Vino, which holds a Wine Spectator Grand Award, with its 19th-century interior and cavernous cellars. Its wine list of more than 4,000 labels is topped by locals such as Giuseppe Quintarelli Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Superiore Riserva 1990 at a whopping $3,300.
But local wines at the Bottega or most anywhere else in Verona need not be that serious or expensive to be good.
Another favorite institution is the Osteria Sottoriva, a rustic bar and eatery under the medieval arcades next to the Adige. My wife and I recently stopped in for an aperitivo, and I studied the blackboard wine list next to the bar. At the bottom of the list was written "Prozac," the name for the house Prosecco served from a keg at 2 euros (about $2.20) a glass.
That bubbly may not win any awards, but it was very drinkable. I toasted to the thought that this city has enough character to keep us here for a good while.
Italo-philes: Tell me—what are your favorite places in Italy and why?