Wine of the Week: Allegrini Palazzo della Torre

Wine: Allegrini Palazzo della Torre

Grapes: Corvina (70 percent), rondinella (25 percent), sangiovese (5 percent)

Region: Valpolicella, Verona, Northeastern Italy

Vintage: 2010

Price: $18.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor and other retailers

In the glass: Palazzo della Torre wine is a deeply opaque blackish-red color with an inky core going out into a deep garnet to brick-red rim definition with high viscosity.

On the nose: It is a deep, brooding wine that releases complex layers of mature fruit with diced black plums, dried cherries, mulberry crush, game meat, dark chocolate, coffee grounds, iodine, earth-driven minerals and black currant jam.

On the palate: The wine hits like a rich, semibittersweet dried fruit bomb with massive concentration, aged black plums, spiced-up cassis fruit, red cherry compote, ripe and rustic huckleberries, dried herbs and earthy minerals. The midpalate of this huge full-bodied wine is teeming with flavors, showing massive tannins, yet ripeness and balance, on the basis of acidity that works with the phenols and fruit. The finish is concentrated black cherries, mulberries and hints of sweet currants.

Odds and ends: The Allegrini family has been handing down grape-growing and wine-producing traditions through many generations, playing a major role in the Valpolicella Classico area for centuries. Their winemaking philosophy is based largely on the concept of “cru” production: a single vineyard dedicated to the production of local varieties destined to become a single wine. These crus have been a great success.

An interesting thing to note about this wine is that a part of it was made from grapes using the “Amarone” method, in which after harvest, the grape clusters are laid out to dry for about eight to nine weeks and then are pressed into wine. This gives a tremendous full-bodied richness in the wine and adds to the concentrate and dry extract levels.

This wine requires something rather rich in the meat department, such as osso buco Milanese. Drink it now through 2020 and leave it open for about an hour before consumption.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.