2018 Dal Forno Romano Vigneto Monte Lodoletta, Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, Italy (750ml)

WINEMAKER'S NOTES:

Blend: 60% Corvina, 20% Rondinella, 10% Oseleta, 10% Croatina

TASTING NOTES:

Fragrant and enticing, exuding ripe fruit, incense and India ink aromas. This is tightly meshed and focused, with a muscular core of tannins enmeshed in flavors of pureed mulberry and boysenberry fruit, violet, herbed black olive and fig paste. This shows real depth of flavor and length but also bright freshness and animation. Spice, graphite and tar-tinged mineral notes lace the long finish. Corvina, Rondinella, Oseleta and Croatina. Drink now through 2043.

- Wine Spectator, 96 pts.

A bouquet of dusty rose and lavender complements crushed blackberries and hints of sweet smoke. This wine is pure energy, seamless and silky, with cooling acidity and mineral tones that expose depths of tart wild berry fruit. A bitter hint of dark chocolate saturates the palate. The 2018 is an understated beauty. Although structured, its tannins are dusty and fine, creating a web of youthful restraint as hints of mocha and clove slowly fade. This is the first Amarone vintage to take advantage of Dal Forno's latest acquisition, located just one kilometre from the winery - a site with pergola vines that are on average forty years old.

- Vinous, 96 pts. 

Dark inky color with a restrained nose of cloves, cassis, macerated violets, earth, graphite and a hint of Band-Aid. Full-bodied with a dense palate of black licorice and dark chocolate flavors, refreshing acidity and firm tannins. It’s youthful, chewy and dynamic. Drinkable now, but best from 2028.

- James Suckling, 95 pts. 

The Dal Forno Romano 2018 Amarone della Valpolicella Monte Lodoletta shows similar intensity and complexity compared to the 2019 vintage, but these remain two very different wines at the end of the day. The 2018 vintage shows extra fruit ripeness and even some jammy flavors with cherry confit and blackberry coulis. The tannins also appear softer (comparatively, although we are still talking about a Dal Forno Amarone—probably the wine with the biggest tannins I taste from Italy). That velvety structural texture gives this wine a more accessible approach, although the wine's ideal drinking window remains a far way off. The 2018 delivers pretty floral aromas of rose or dried lavender that seem specific to this vintage with a hot summer and cooler harvest conditions. This wine will be released in 2025.

- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 94 pts. 

The older vines from the estate's best plots are used for this Amarone. Rich and intense, but with an aromatic note thanks to the wet 2018 vintage, the powerful alcohol is kept well in check by the acidity and fine, grainy, slightly drying tannins. Dark cherry, cassis, amaro and balsamic herbs lead to a dense finish of black cherry.

- Decanter, 94 pts.