The 2015 vintage was quite clearly one of the best vintages for Amarone della Valpolicella in a very long time. In fact, I’d say it’s easily one of the best three to five Amarone vintages of the last fifty years. Just to help you gain perspective, using as a comparison wines that don’t go as far back and that you might actually have tasted, as good as the excellent and rather classic 2013 wines were (no slouches they), the 2015s really have one leg up on them, and then some.
I was reminded of just how great the best Amarones from 2015 are during a recent tasting of a selection of the top wines from some of Valpolicella’s best producers, and came away not just impressed but thinking that 2015 is really shaping up to be remembered as a memorable vintage for Amarone. There’s lots to like about these fleshy, rich, dense, but generally refined wines; even better, like it is in all great vintages, the quality of wines is high across the board, with most valid producers coming up with at least one wine gem in 2015. That means there’s an embarrassment of riches for all palates and wallets to choose from, and that’s always good news. Therefore, I decided it was high time to cover the vintage’s best wines once again, to see if they have changed much from the first time I tasted them, and to determine how they have all aged. I undertook a horizontal tasting that covers most of the denomination’s best wines and confirms just how great the 2015 vintage is for Amarone. My suggestion is to look at some of the wines in this report and consider stocking up with at least some of them: certainly, there will be other great vintages in the future, but 2015 is a vintage of powerful yet refined wines. Or in other words, remarkably well-balanced wines, which is not as common as we all might like with Amarone. After all, we really don’t have any guarantees a similarly successful vintage will come our way again anytime soon, and so… rev up your shopping carts!
