2013 Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva Fieramonte
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Tasting notes
The 2013 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva Fieramonte is dark and brooding, smoldering up from the glass with dried cherries and roses, cloves and a grounding note of crushed ashen stone. This is elegance personified, mixing masses of rich raspberry and cherry with autumnal spices and salty minerals. Grippy tannins form toward the close. The depth here is unreal, peeling back layer after layer. This is long and structured, hauntingly so, with an air of clove, lavender and mocha. This is a total “wow” wine. I question if this was from a sound bottle the first time I tasted it. Either way, an upgrade is necessary.
Critic scores
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Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
Eric Guido, Vinous
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The top-shelf wine from Allegrini is the 2013 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva Fieramonte. This full-bodied wine is 45% Corvina, 45% Corvinone, 5% Rondinella and 5% Oseleta. After harvest, the grapes see 120 days of appassimento. Fieramonte pours from the bottle with inky rich concentration and a blackish color. The wine offers lovely dimension, depth and texture, and these qualities are especially noteworthy in this cool vintage with a longer growing season. There are some oak renderings of toast and cinnamon on the close, and I would suggest giving this wine another five years of cellar time.
The single-vineyard 2013 Amarone Classico Riserva Fieramonte wafts up a heady display of fresh ground coffee, dark chocolate, cherry liquor, rum cake and sweet mint. There are depths of glycerol-like textures here, feeling almost oily at times; yet balance is maintained, as ripe blackberries, plums and currants are complicated by hints of balsamic spice. A bit of heat pokes through, as this large-scale effort closes on notes of licorice, grilled herbs and tobacco. Next to the stylish 2016 Amarone, the 2013 Fieramonte comes across as a bit clumsy. It’s aching to be paired with a plate of rich and ripe cheeses.