Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG 2017 – MAGNUM
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 result is powerful and deep fruited, vanilla and black pepper spice over dark dried cherry and plum, with dense, velvety tannins and a warm, savoury length. The 2017 is open and expressive now, with the structure to develop further in a good cellar. Decant it for 45 minutes and serve at 18 °C with venison, roast or braised meats, hearty stews and aged cheeses; in Venice it stands up handsomely to fegato alla veneziana. This is Amarone from a small cellar that measures itself against the biggest names.
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.
