Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG Classico Riserva 2015
Wine Description
This Riserva carries the estate's own name and stands at the top of Le Ragose's cellar, an Amarone held in wood far longer than the appellation asks. Corvina 50%, Rondinella 20% and Corvinone 20% with 10% other traditional varieties dry in single layers from the September harvest into January; after a slow, temperature controlled fermentation the wine rests seven to eight years in Slavonian oak casks before it is bottled.
At 16% it is powerful yet composed: dense ripe berries and morello cherry, dark chocolate, licorice and balsamic spice, with the freshness of vineyards at 350 metres running underneath. The 2015 is young for a wine on this scale; an hour in a decanter now, or years of patience, both work. Serve at 18 to 20 °C with braised game, a rib of beef, pastissada de caval or very aged mountain cheese, and keep a glass for after the table.
Winery
Le Ragose sits at about 350 metres above Negrar, at one of the highest points of the Valpolicella Classica, on steep southwest facing terraces that the enologists Arnaldo and Marta Galli rescued from abandonment in 1969. The family still works the roughly sixteen hectares by hand, without irrigation, on clay soils rich in magnesium, calcium and iron over draining tufa. Altitude and patience define the house: careful drying of the grapes, long spells in Slavonian oak casks, and wines that favour freshness and line over sheer weight, from the Valpolicella and Le Sassine up to the long aged Amarone Riserva.
