Allegrini is one of Italy's top producers. Their Amarone is a top red wine. It is produced in the Veneto region of North Eastern Italy from dried grapes. The drying process increases the concentration of sugars in the grapes. It also concentrates the flavour. The grapes are dried on straw mats. Amarone is usually strong in alcohol: our was 14%.
Amarone is made primarily from the Corvina and Rondinella grapes. Some of the grapes are late harvested and are subjected to noble rot. This increases the complexity of the wine but reduces fresh fruit flavours.
We drank our wine with roast duck. In my mind you should not drink Amarone without food.
As our wine was 25 years old, it was well matured and had turned a Burgundy colour. It smelt of dried fruits with a very slight oxidised character reminiscent of Port. There were also hints of oak. The smell was powerful and the wine smelt as if it was fully mature and ready for drinking.
On the palate the wine was of full body with softening tannin. It was bone dry, it was strong in alcohol but not hot. The wine was warming just like Port. There were no fresh fruit favours and it tasted of stewed fruits. It also tasted a little like aged vintage Port but very dry and a little sour from the acidity. The wine was concentrated and complex and you could tell it had been matured in oak barrels. It had exceptionally long length on the palate. It had all the hallmarks of a great wine.
Drink it now and decant it as it throws lots of sediment which is harmless.
One of our friends who is a wine enthusiast was suitably impressed and so was I.
Formerly, Amarone would have been given the name Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone or Amarone della Valpolicella but this is a bit of a mouthful so now it allowed the much simpler name.
Wine drinkers will recognise the name Valpolicella which is a lesser quality red wine and once upon a time it was derided as garbage by an influential wine writer. Valpolicella is much improved and is now a quality wine with lots of fruit.
One of my favourite wines is Valpolicella Ripasso which is matured on the lees of Recioto or dried grape wines.
These wines are best enjoyed with food especially Italian. Good Amarone is simply wonderful.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/allegrini+docg+amarone+della+valpolicella+cls+veneto+italy/1990
Wednesday 18 March 2015
Monday 16 March 2015
2012 Bodegas Rafael Palacios Valdeorras As Sortes Val do Bibei
We drank As Sortes 2012 White with our meal when we sampled the Les Forts de Latour. This wine is from a top winemaker in the Valdeorras region of Galicia in northern Spain. It is made from the little known Godella grape.
The vineyards are situated in the Sil river valley on slopes at a height of about 240 meters; in a climate influenced by the Atlantic ocean.
Rafael Palacios has produced a well crafted wine here. It is dry with a light body and medium plus acidity. It tastes just as it smells with a nutty flavour combined with citrus and green fruits. It is concentrated and complex with an extremely long length. It has its own distinctive flavour which is a little reminiscent of Albariño which is another Galician wine. The As Sortes is , however, at another class level compared to standard Albariño.
Rafael Palacios As Sortes is a little more expensive than I normally pay for wine but it is worth it and it holds its own with the best wines from France and Spain and even the Les Forts de Latour as you are not paying a premium for an investment wine label. The As Sortes will keep and improve in the bottle for 5 years or so but you can enjoy now. It is best to drink it with good sea food - Sea Bass or Hake.
This is wonderful wine and I thoroughly recommend it.
http://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1744199
The vineyards are situated in the Sil river valley on slopes at a height of about 240 meters; in a climate influenced by the Atlantic ocean.
Rafael Palacios has produced a well crafted wine here. It is dry with a light body and medium plus acidity. It tastes just as it smells with a nutty flavour combined with citrus and green fruits. It is concentrated and complex with an extremely long length. It has its own distinctive flavour which is a little reminiscent of Albariño which is another Galician wine. The As Sortes is , however, at another class level compared to standard Albariño.
Rafael Palacios As Sortes is a little more expensive than I normally pay for wine but it is worth it and it holds its own with the best wines from France and Spain and even the Les Forts de Latour as you are not paying a premium for an investment wine label. The As Sortes will keep and improve in the bottle for 5 years or so but you can enjoy now. It is best to drink it with good sea food - Sea Bass or Hake.
This is wonderful wine and I thoroughly recommend it.
http://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1744199
1989 Les Forts de Latour Red
Les Forts de Latour is the second wine of the famous Château Latour Paulliac. 1989 was a good year in Bordeaux but I was not certain that this wine was going to age well any longer.
I decanted the wine just before some guests arrived to eat roast beef with us. There was plenty of sediment left at the bottom of the bottle and I sampled a glass of the dregs to make sure that the wine was OK. If you swallow a little bit of sediment it does you no harm.
The wine was past its best and was on the downward slope but if you want to buy a bottle now it will cost you around £100. We had bought the wine for considerably less years ago.
The wine had turned a Burgundy colour owing to the age. It smelt perfectly clean with aromas of vanilla and oak on the nose and dried fruits rather than fresh fruits. It was more like stewed prunes than plums.
On the palate it had medium acidity and the tannins where were very light. It was now medium body but I suspect that in 1992 it would have had a fuller body. It tasted very much as it smelt with the typical tobacco box flavour of Bordeaux and the oak taste of vanilla was still there. There was very little fresh fruit flavour and there were vegetal flavours just like aged Burgundy. It was very concentrated but it had probably lost some complexity. It tasted very warm on the palate which in my view is a mark of a wine which has aged well. it was not however hot as all the components of the wine were well integrated. It had a very long length. All in all it had aged well and was of very good quality. Most wine would have gone rotten after 25 years.
I suspect now that buyers are prepared to pay lots of money for this wine because of the label. If you have got some of this wine then I suggest that you drink it if you are not interested in money, as it is on the way down.
I was interested in the reaction of our guests when they tasted it . I told everyone what wine it was. My wife and one of our female friends were very impressed. I could tell from the faces from my other guests that they were less enthusiastic. I think that we have all got used to drinking wines at a younger age and we are used to strong fruit flavours and even wine enthusiasts get a bit of a shock when they taste ageing fruit flavours rather than fresh ones.
I think I got a genuine reaction from my wife and friends uninfluenced by the label, the reputation or the price or my suggestion and this is what wine appreciation should really be about.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/les+forts+de+latour/1989
I decanted the wine just before some guests arrived to eat roast beef with us. There was plenty of sediment left at the bottom of the bottle and I sampled a glass of the dregs to make sure that the wine was OK. If you swallow a little bit of sediment it does you no harm.
The wine was past its best and was on the downward slope but if you want to buy a bottle now it will cost you around £100. We had bought the wine for considerably less years ago.
The wine had turned a Burgundy colour owing to the age. It smelt perfectly clean with aromas of vanilla and oak on the nose and dried fruits rather than fresh fruits. It was more like stewed prunes than plums.
On the palate it had medium acidity and the tannins where were very light. It was now medium body but I suspect that in 1992 it would have had a fuller body. It tasted very much as it smelt with the typical tobacco box flavour of Bordeaux and the oak taste of vanilla was still there. There was very little fresh fruit flavour and there were vegetal flavours just like aged Burgundy. It was very concentrated but it had probably lost some complexity. It tasted very warm on the palate which in my view is a mark of a wine which has aged well. it was not however hot as all the components of the wine were well integrated. It had a very long length. All in all it had aged well and was of very good quality. Most wine would have gone rotten after 25 years.
I suspect now that buyers are prepared to pay lots of money for this wine because of the label. If you have got some of this wine then I suggest that you drink it if you are not interested in money, as it is on the way down.
I was interested in the reaction of our guests when they tasted it . I told everyone what wine it was. My wife and one of our female friends were very impressed. I could tell from the faces from my other guests that they were less enthusiastic. I think that we have all got used to drinking wines at a younger age and we are used to strong fruit flavours and even wine enthusiasts get a bit of a shock when they taste ageing fruit flavours rather than fresh ones.
I think I got a genuine reaction from my wife and friends uninfluenced by the label, the reputation or the price or my suggestion and this is what wine appreciation should really be about.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/les+forts+de+latour/1989
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