In this very high-quality Amarone vintage, this is a special one-off bottling from the excellent Marchesi Biscardo. (Whose regular Amarone, in the lowest price for ANY vintage on Wine-Searcher, sells for $64.99 in 2013.)
Italy’s Finest Wines says of the superb 2017 Amarone vintage:
Deep wines endowed with great extract, lively and intense colors and vigorous tannins of good maturity. Important alcoholic components, in rare cases also in evidence and clear, intense and penetrating fruity aromas. An exceptional vintage of Amarone della Valpolicella: great character and excellent evolutionary potential, deservedly among the best vintages of Amarone della Valpolicella
Unlike so many industrial Amarones today, this organically farmed example, from an ideally situated clay and limestone hillside vineyard, is made in this ultra-traditional manner:
The grapes are picked from the top of the vine tree and in the past wine makers were using only the wings of the clusters that are called “recia” in Verona dialect. The grapes are dried for three/four months on straw mats; after this period the juice is very concentrated, and the grapes are ready to be pressed. The juice ferments on the skins very slowly for about 40 days with frequent pump-over to extract flavors and color. If the wine is partially fermented, we obtain the dessert version called “RECIOTO”, otherwise the fully fermented version is absolutely dry and takes the name of “AMARONE”. After fermentation the wine is sharpened for 3-4 years in Slovenian oak barrels, then we allow the wine to rest in the bottle for another year before we release it.
Plus it’s a special one-time selection. As Biscardo explains:
CARRA wines are a celebration of the best and the brightest classic wines from some of our favorite wine estates, that are part of Nicola Biscardo Selections portfolio. Nicola Biscardo, together with Oenologist Giuseppe Vassanelli, carefully selects one or more estates that represent the traditional winemaking methods of the region.
In this case, that estate is Biscardo themselves.
