Style: Few wines are as bold as Amarone. Made in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, this specialty wine is produced alongside Valpolicella, a usually medium bodied blend of Corvina, Molinara and Rondinella grapes. Italian Amarone takes the same raw materials and makes them into a treasured, powerful red table wine. The finest Amarone grapes come from bunches that have two well spaced clusters sticking out to allow the sun to ripen the whole bunch evenly. The secret lies in fragrant, perfectly ripe grapes and how they’re treated. During the harvest a portion of the grapes are diverted from the crusher and set aside to dry on straw mats, eventually turning into extremely sweet raisins. When they’re added to the fermenting wine, they explode into new activity, driving the alcohol content up and increasing the color, flavor and aroma to dizzying heights from the extra skin material. Winexpert Selection International Italian Amarone is a very intense and complex wine, with a wide array of flavors and aromas. Deep ruby red, this heavyweight wine exudes aromas of sour cherries, dark chocolate, stewed plums, dried fruits, anise, raisins, bitter almond, tobacco, leather and molasses, and has a spicy-earthy bittersweet finish that lengthens on indefinitely from the huge volume of tannins. Delightful with food, Italian Amarone is often enjoyed by itself, sipped outside of mealtimes with good conversation and good friends. Similar Styles: Selection Estate Series Crushendo Valpolicella Classico di Veneto Food pairings: Intensely flavored roasts, game and grilled meats, pasta with rich meat sauce, osso buco, or chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese—or perhaps a fine cigar! Sweetness code: 1 (slightly off-dry, although this is offset by the tannic finish of the wine). Alcohol by Volume: 15.0%. Oak: 60 grams Hungarian. Aging: While the intense fruitiness combines with powerful tannins to make this appealing to drink right away, only after a year of age will the heady perfume of dried fruits and spiciness come out. After two years it will begin to develop the pungent, earthy richness so prized by collectors of fine Italian wine.

Silver Award 2008 Winemaker magazine competition