Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG 2013
Wine Description
Ferragù's Amarone comes from old family vines in the Val d'Illasi, the eastern Veronese valley where the estate farms about eight hectares of reds. Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Oseleta are dried for around 70 days, fermented slowly, then aged three years in small French and American oak with a further year in glass before release, the estate's standard route for this wine.
The house style is powerful and deep fruited, with vanilla and black pepper spice over dark dried cherry and plum. Now well past its tenth birthday, the 2013 has folded that power into a smoother, more savoury whole, with leather and tobacco alongside the fruit. Decant it half an hour ahead and serve at 18 °C with venison, roasts, braised or stewed meats and aged cheeses, or in Venetian company with fegato alla veneziana; it also rewards slow sipping on its own after the plates are cleared.
Winery
Carlo Ferragù farms about eight hectares of red varieties in the Val d'Illasi, east of Verona, at roughly 240 metres, with a further hectare of olive trees. He runs the estate with his brothers Ornello and Angelo from a cellar that pairs an old Romanesque stone farmhouse with modern equipment, and the vines behind the Amarone average around 55 years of age. Production is small and pointed at reds of scale: a Valpolicella Superiore, the estate Amarone and an Amarone Riserva grown on a single hectare at Cellore d'Illasi.
