Monte Dall’ora Amarone della Valpolicella “La Stropa” 2015 750ml

#64 in Top 100 World, 2024. Pale ruby with a garnet rim, this Amarone is very restrained with a subtle mix of plums,prunes, licorice, earthy minerality, vibrant bay leaves and a touch of balsamic. Milk chocolate, mint and graphite in the finish. Dry, with a generous attack, a full body and super silky tannins on the mid-palate, with zesty acidity balancing relatively moderate alcohol for an Amarone. Clean, tense finish, with good length. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drinkable now, but will develop more complexity with extra bottle aging.

The 2015 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Stropa bursts from the glass with a tantalizing bouquet of rose petals, crushed rocks and sweet smoke complementing strawberry preserves. This opens with a pleasant inner sweetness, as silky textures envelop the palate with ripe red and blue fruits and tactile mineral tones add a grippy feel toward the close. While lightly structured, this finishes wickedly fresh, leaving hints of licorice and a bitter tinge of clove to linger on and on. This is top-shelf Amarone. The one word that keeps coming to mind is: delicious.

50% Corvina/20% Corvinone/20% Rondinella/10% Molinara & Dindarella. While DOCG law allows a grower to use up to half of its crop for the vaunted Amarone appellation, Carlo and Alessandra choose to keep it to 15-20% at most. The source of the fruit is their core estate vineyard, from which come the grapes for their Saseti Valp. Classico and Saustò Valp. Superiore as well: 25-year-old pergola-trained, co-planted, biodynamically farmed vines of only traditional varieties. Counter-intuitive though it may be, those precious bunches for the Amarone are the first to be harvested. Four people spend 3 weeks selecting the most perfect, healthy, ripe-but-not-overripe bunches with still-bright acidity. The bunches are laid out in single layers in small, slatted, wooden boxes that are stacked in the open-sided fruttaio next to the house/cellar. The drying proceeds slowly and naturally with zero technology; the environment is well-ventilated and quite cool, preventing any fermentation and allowing a gradual evaporation and concentration of flavor. After 3-4 months, the dried grapes are destemmed, gently crushed (leaving some whole berries for a touch of carbonic maceration) and dropped by gravity into one or two small, open, oak tini. Fermentation is entirely spontaneous with indigenous yeasts and without sulfur, taking 40-50 days with daily foot-treading to reach near-total dryness (1-2 grams RS max typically). Minimum aging is in 25-hectoliter botti for 3 years, then in bottle for 2.5 more years. A stropa is a switch from the native weeping willow tree, used historically in Valpolicella viticulture to tie vines to pergolas; it is readily available and strong enough to withstand winter winds that blow down from the Alto Adige mountains. Monte Dall'Ora has not only perpetuated that practice but named their Amarone for it and actually tie a stropa around the neck of each red-wax-capped bottle. This literal tie to tradition perfectly symbolizes their passion for the history and terroir of Valpolicella. Their Amarone tends toward savory and sinew-y rather than sappy and sweet, uniquely reflective of vintage and place.