Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG 2013
The Legend says that Amarone was born because of a mistake of a cellarman, that forgot a Recioto barrel, for months in his winery. When he finally tasted it, he found out that Recioto had become something else: the wine was not sweet anymore, but it had developed had a great body and bitter hints. The name Amarone (in italian: Great Bitter), comes from this typical flavour.
Amarone is produced out of dry grapes; during the harvest, only the best bunches are selected for the drying process. The grapes are placed in wooden trays and dried for at least 3 months. This concentrates the sugars and allows the development of new flavours, which can be produced just through this drying process.
Once the process is completed, grapes are pressed and placed in steel tanks: the fermentation starts spontaneously, and continues until the sugar is completely consumed. Successively, the wine refines in steel tanks for ca. 2 years and in wooden barrels for ca. 3 years.
Wine Characteristics
The vintage 2013 was complicated for our vineyards and winery. Many factors affected the production of Amarone and Recioto in this year: the excess of rainfall over the year, the rain occurred during the harvest and finally high temperatures in the first phase of grape drying. These factors caused the proliferation of botrytis cinerea on the drying grapes, stored in wooden trays for the production of Amarone and Recioto. In November it was necessary to make a second sorting of grapes, to separate the corrupted grapes from the good ones.
The drying phase of grapes was extended up to the beginning of February: in this way, we managed to reach a sugar content just little below the average.
After pressing and fermentation, the wine was refined for 2 years in steel and for 4 years in great oak barrels (10 hl).
The wine taste is fresh and lively; at first it might look light and simple, but it hides an unexpected complexity.