Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [84]
RECIOTO AND AMARONE DELLA VALPOLICELLA—THE VENETO’S ONE-OF-A-KIND REDS Recioto (Reh-chee-OH-toe) is a kind of bittersweet, rich, almost Port-like red wine made from grapes grown in the Valpolicella vineyards. The best quality and ripest grapes are dried to concentrate the flavor and sugar according to the passito method, as for Vin Santo. Amarone is made the same way, but fermented to dryness or near dryness, so that it’s very strong and full-bodied. Both are amazing, distinctive styles when skillfully made. Look for the following producers: Quintarelli, Allegrini, Bertani (Bear-TAH-nee), Tommasi (Toe-MAH-see), Masi (MAH-zee), and Pasqua (PAHSS-quah).
WINE TASTING
The One-of-a-Kind Wines—Vin Santo and Amarone
You really must do this exciting tasting, for two reasons. Most important, there is an excellent lesson to be learned from it, because this is our first opportunity to taste the effect bottle age has on a wine. I think you’ll be amazed. These two wines are particularly suited to the lesson because, although they are not cheap, they remain quite affordable compared to the classic wines that improve with bottle age—Bordeaux, top California Cabernet, and so on. In addition, you can actually find them, aged, in stores, which is rarely the case with the classics. What does aging do to a wine? A lot.
The color of age Aging dramatically affects a wine’s color. As we discussed at the beginning of this book, think what happens when you cut an apple in half and expose the flesh to air. It turns brown. Similarly, white wines darken and turn brown as they age, and red wines fade and turn brown as they age, due to the oxidation that takes place.
The scent of age Aging also dramatically affects a wine’s scent. Over time, the fresh, ripe fruit flavors change and evolve, fading from those pure, farm-fresh fruit scents into the smell of dried fruits. But in addition, all kinds of new scents emerge that would seem to have nothing at all to do with fruit—scents of spices, nuts, sassafras, chocolate, dried flowers, pastry, caramel, toffee, honey, molasses, brown sugar, and countless other exotica will emerge depending on the particular wine. When you start to taste these, it becomes easy to see why some people get so gah-gah over older wines. (But remember that this applies to the minority of wines that are built for, and will improve with, aging. Most wines just lose their fruit flavor and will ultimately taste of vinegar with age.)
The taste of age Often, the flavors of aged wines echo the scents described above. In addition, the texture of older wines mellows and softens, in two ways. First, the acidity in both white and red wines tones down and becomes less vivid and tangy, which gives the wine a softer texture in your mouth. Second, the tannin in red wines softens a lot, and may actually settle out of the wine altogether, forming a sediment in the bottom of the bottle. This softening is what drinkers of the big “Killer B” red wines like Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello, Bordeaux, and Burgundy are waiting for as they age the wines in their cellars.
But right now, we can’t wait. We’re going to taste a Tuscan Vin Santo and an Amarone from the Valpolicella region in the Veneto. On the Vin Santo, the effects of age are exaggerated by the fact that the wine is allowed to oxidize as it ages in barrels. Amarone is classically aged for a long time at the winery before release, so, unlike most wines, it comes to market with extra age. As a reminder, both are passito wines, meaning their grapes are dried into raisins before pressing and fermentation, so both wines, though different, share a common trait—very concentrated flavor. I know you’ll love them. The wines are quite strong, so I suggest doing this tasting with friends. Get some biscotti for dipping into the Vin Santo, and a nice block of aged Parmigiano Reggiano or a similar cheese to go with the Amarone, and make an evening of it.
That’s the second reason to do this tasting—it’s really fun.