Amarone della Valpolicella 2017

From a four hectares with the oldest vines (55 years) all grown Pergola Veronese, this is 60% Corvina, 20% Corvinone, 15% Rondinella and 5% Croatina. The grapes are dried until the first week of December and then pressed into stainless with thirty days maceration. Malo is in casks and the wine is aged fermented in stainless for Amarone are dried until early December and the wine is aged 60% in barriques (max. 20% new) and 40% in botti for 24 months followed by another 24 in the bottle. This is rich and concentrated but guided by the house style that favours complexity and balance over power.

The 2017 Valpolicella Superiore by Roccolo Grassi is a sleeping giant. It slowly awakens in the glass with a dark mix of herbal-tinged plums, cracked ashen stone, incense and dried flowers. This is silky verging on velvety, with a core of stimulating acidity that helps to enliven depths of ripe mineral inflected red and black fruits as inner violet florals collect toward the close. The 2017 boasts a lovely inner sweetness to counterbalance the fine-grained tannins and primary concentration, as it finishes youthfully structured, leaving a hint of salted licorice to linger. The warmth of the vintage has added an extra dimension to the fruit here, yet some cellaring is still recommended to allow its aromatics to come fully into focus. The Valpolicella by Roccolo Grassi is produced using 30% appassimento grapes dried for twenty days. It's refined in a 50%-50% mix of large oak cask and barrique, of which only about 20% are new. 94 points, Eric Guido