2016 Le Salette Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Classico La Marega

Deep, currant-like fruit on the nose, together with fresh flowers, some dark-chocolate orange and bright spice. The fresh and bright notes continue on the full palate with lightly firm, fruit and mineral-coated tannins. So much energy and drive here. Long, clean, mineral finish. Outstanding Amarone. Best after 2023.

You can lose yourself in the bouquet of the 2016 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico La Marega, as violets and lavender give way to blackberries, cherry sauce, white smoke and hints of clove. The textures are like pure silk, seamlessly coasting along a medium-bodied frame while displaying a dense core of mineral-tinged black fruits. There’s beautiful symmetry here, with residual acids buffering the 2016’s fine-grained tannins. It tapers off youthfully structured yet with cooling minty herbs contrasted by hints of mocha. This is stunning. La Marega is a single-vineyard expression from the Fumane sub-region within Valpolicella Classico.

The Le Salette 2016 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico La Marega is a careful wine that shows plenty of important inner elegance and measured intensity, but it also showcases the distinctive power that comes with the appassimento process for wines made with air-dried fruit. The bouquet reveals layers of dried plum and blackcurrant, and there are plenty of savory tones, including spice, leather and smoke. La Marega will be most remembered for the studied balance it achieves throughout.