Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG Riserva 2015

Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG Riserva 2015

Ferragù’s Amarone Riserva comes from a single hectare at Cellore d’Illasi, planted densely at 13,000 vines per hectare at about 220 metres. Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Croatina and Oseleta dry for 70 to 90 days, losing roughly 40% of their weight, before a slow fermentation and a very long rest: the wine spends about six years in French and American barriques and a further year in bottle before it leaves the cellar.
That patience produces an Amarone of unusual depth: layer on layer of dried black fruit, vanilla, black pepper, cocoa and balsamic tones, full bodied and velvety with smooth tannins. The 2015 is open now and still far from its ceiling. Decant it for an hour and serve at 18 °C with the strongest plates you have: braised venison, brasato, aged cheeses, or a slow Venetian dinner that ends with fegato alla veneziana and quiet glasses.

Carlo Ferragù farms about eight hectares of red varieties in the Val d’Illasi, east of Verona, at roughly 240 metres, with a further hectare of olive trees. He runs the estate with his brothers Ornello and Angelo from a cellar that pairs an old Romanesque stone farmhouse with modern equipment, and the vines behind the Amarone average around 55 years of age. Production is small and pointed at reds of scale: a Valpolicella Superiore, the estate Amarone and an Amarone Riserva grown on a single hectare at Cellore d’Illasi.

Carlo Ferragù farms about eight hectares of red varieties in the Val d’Illasi, east of Verona, at roughly 240 metres, with a further hectare of olive trees. He runs the estate with his brothers Ornello and Angelo from a cellar that pairs an old Romanesque stone farmhouse with modern equipment, and the vines behind the Amarone average around 55 years of age. Production is small and pointed at reds of scale: a Valpolicella Superiore, the estate Amarone and an Amarone Riserva grown on a single hectare at Cellore d’Illasi.