Painstaking process explains Amarone’s excellence
It’s a luxury wine — especially in this province — but worth occasional splurge
One of the world’s greatest wines is Amarone. The wine is made from dried grapes of the Veneto. It is now and always has been a luxury wine. The Sask Party decided it was altogether too luxurious for this province and slapped a surtax on it that resulted in the price going up about 40 per cent. The price ranges from about $40 to $50 a bottle elsewhere in Canada. But in Wally World we can expect to pay about $65. (Apparently the MLAs and Sask Party functionaries do their shopping in Calgary.)
Be that as it may, this is a wine that everyone needs to drink now and then. The wine is made by drying the grapes on bamboo and straw beds for three or four months after picking. When the appropriate moisture level is reached the berries are crushed, the juice fermented and the wine made and stored in Slavonian oak barriques for another 24 months or so, then bottled and kept another couple of years and released.
Masi is the pioneer of modern Amarone style. Their Costasera is a richly scented, dark coloured, complex and powerful wine.
It is more fruit-driven than traditional Amarone which had a tendency to botrytis, and oak dominated, tannic wines. The wine is high in alcohol content, typically about 15 per cent.
Although the last couple of years have been unkind to Veneto vintages, the years from 2009 to 2012 were exceptional. Wines in the hands of vintners who knew what they were doing made then are exceptional. The 2011 Costasera is an excellent case in point. Which year you prefer is probably more a matter of taste than chemical analysis — I wouldn’t turn away a glass from any year — but the argument for 2011 is pretty strong.
The bouquet is rather like Christmas cake, full of dried and baked fruit aromas with some spice and chocolate behind it. The wine is extraordinarily well balanced, a tightrope walk of sweetness, tannin, acidity and that traditional Veneto slightly bitter finish. These days, Sairey and I drink it as an after-dinner drink with small pieces of Parmesan cheese. You could substitute Gorgonzola or any other aged cheese of choice. It is a lovely accompaniment to most game and red meat dishes.
Montresor Amarone is something of a throwback to the older style of Amarone. For a start, it already shows signs of browning on the edge, which rather surprised me. Normally I’d have thought the 2012 Amarone would last at least 25 years. The bouquet is quite raisiny and the palate relatively lean (for an Amarone) with flavours of mature wine. If you’ve never had a ripe wine, this is a useful example available on SLGA shelves.
Bolla Amarone is a price throwback. The label has apparently decided to eat the surtax and keep the wine affordable, which makes this wine a deal of an Amarone. It is slightly different from the other two in that there is little or no Molinara grapes in the cepage. Corvina is a much under-rated grape and this wine is an excellent example from a winery that knows its stuff.
The bouquet is of cherries and preserves, with a bit of spice and cocoa. The palate is rich, dry, black cherries with a long finish of chocolate and earth. If you’ve never had an Amarone, this is a great place to start.
Wine of the Week: Masi Costasera 2011 $68
Other Choices: Bolla Amarone 2012 $46
■ (Deal-ish alert?) Montresor M Amarone 2012
■ $64