Brigaldara San Floriano Riserva Amarone della Valpolicella 2011

This is Brigaldara's top-shelf wine, and production in this vintage is limited to a mere 3,000 bottles. The 2011 Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva San Floriano sees the traditional blending blocks of the appellation - Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella - pushed to the limit of density, power and richness. The grapes are dehydrated for 120 days. Once fermented, the wine finds balance with two grams per liter of residual sugar, which you don't really taste, followed by a 16.5% alcohol content that you can't miss. Packed in between is black fruit, smoke and fragrant spice or cigar box. The wine is velvety smooth in terms of texture with soft, lasting tannins. It ages in barrique for two years followed by four years in large Slavonian 25-hectoliter oak casks. This was a hot vintage that was good for wines made with air-dried fruit. Enjoy it with spare ribs and polenta. Drink date: 2019-2035. Score - 95. (Monica Larner, robertparker.com, Sept. 30, 2019)