Amarone della Valpolicella DOP Classico Riserva 2003
Wine Description
Quintarelli's Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva appears only in vintages the family judges truly exceptional, which makes it one of the most sought after wines in northern Italy.
The base is the house Amarone: Corvina and Corvinone with Rondinella and small amounts of other traditional varieties, dried for months on racks, fermented slowly through winter and then given even longer in large old botti than the classic bottling, well past a decade before release.
Expect the deepest register of the house style: dried black cherry, fig and date, cocoa, tobacco leaf, incense and balsamic spice, layered over tannins of unusual polish.
The 2003 is now at a mature stage, its warmth folded into sweet tertiary depth.
Serve at 18 °C in generous glasses after decanting, with braised venison, beef cheeks cooked in Amarone or aged Monte Veronese, or on its own after dinner; a bottle this rare asks for an evening built around it.
Winery
Giuseppe Quintarelli, the quiet master of Valpolicella, ran his family's hillside estate at Negrar from 1950 until his death in 2012 and set a standard the region still measures itself against. His daughter Fiorenza and her family keep the cellar exactly as he left it: about eleven hectares of vines, long natural drying of the grapes, slow fermentations and years of rest in large old botti, with every wine released only when the family judges it ready. Production stays near sixty thousand bottles a year, and the famous handwritten labels still leave the estate at their own unhurried pace.
