Rosso “Ca’ del Merlo” Veneto IGT 2018
Vinous 95
Wine Description
Rosso Ca' del Merlo is the Quintarelli red named for the Ca' del Merlo vineyard, and it runs close to the estate's Valpolicella Superiore in spirit: a wine of perfume and patience rather than sheer weight.
Corvina and Corvinone anchor the blend with Rondinella and small amounts of complementary varieties, in the Veronese manner, and the wine rests for years in large old botti before the family lets it go.
In the glass it gives morello cherry, dried plum and orange peel, sweet tobacco and cedar, with the silky, gently gripping texture that marks every red in this cellar.
The 2018 is a recent release and will drink well for many years.
Serve at 16 to 18 °C with an hour in the decanter. Try it with bigoli with duck ragù, guinea fowl or veal cheeks; it also loves aged Asiago.
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.
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