(IL BORRO, ITALY, DEC. 30, 2010): It was cold, dark, and dreary yesterday in Tuscany. I was working on the website most of the day, but I took a quick break for lunch with my kids, colleague and nephew. We ate a simple pasta with spicy tomato sauce and a green salad. I thought we should have a glass of red and I found a bottle of Masi Amarone di Valpolicella. I didn’t notice the vintage.
I came up from the mess of what I call my cellar and I pulled the cork. I decanted it and served everyone. “Wow. 1988. That’s really generous at lunch,” said my nephew.
Honestly, I didn’t plan on opening such a rare and old bottle! Oops!! Oh well.
It didn’t matter, and the single vineyard Amarone, Mazzano, was gorgeous with amazing aromas and flavors of chocolate, Christmas cake, and coffee beans. Some honey and molasses character was there too. It was full and round on the palate. What a soft and beautiful wine. I was 94 points on it.
It went really well with the spicy tomato pasta. It was good with a small cigar afterwards. (We went for a walk in the forest after lunch with my two white dogs).
One thing that caught my eye with the Amarone was that the bottle’s label read that it was 16 degrees alcohol. OMG. I remember when I used to think that Amarone was like drinking Port, but now 16 degrees is the norm for many table wines. Amarone is no longer one of the lone full-throttle wines of the world. Many wines – both white and red — from California, Australia, Spain, and other areas are equally alcoholic or even more so.
But the Masi Amarone was wonderfully balanced and gave such pleasure yesterday. High alcohol wines are a good thing if they are in balance.
I find the contributors for Decanter magazine particularly opposed to wines over 14%ALC, often discounting them as not being "fine wine". I find this rash generalization perturbing. Can't argue with a quality vintage, single vineyard Masi, or Dal Forno...amazing stuff. Sometimes great wines are most enjoyable at a casual lunch.