1990 Amarone della Valpolicella
Buying options
Tasting notes
When Robert M. Parker Jr. first reviewed this wine back in 1997, he wrote: "Full-bodied, powerful and rich, with no hard edges, this is a heady, sensationally endowed wine that should drink well for 15 years. Wow! An amazing wine." Today, I am tasting this wine more than 20 years after those words were published, and the 1990 Amarone della Valpolicella Vigneto di Monte Lodoletta is still holding on, albeit tenuously. In Mr. Parker's original review, he described the wine as "massively proportioned," and perhaps that is the key point of his review that no longer applies. This wine has thinned out and become more subdued over these three decades since the harvest, bringing delicate aromas of smoke, tar, dried tobacco leaves, graphite and crushed stone to the forefront of the bouquet. The mouthfeel is more streamlined, and we noticed that it took our bottle quite a while before those aromas started to reveal themselves. Our sample started closed, but it did open shyly with time. We considered opening a second bottle to confirm our impressions, but alas, none are left at the winery. My conclusion is that the wine is thinning out, and although our bottle may not have been perfect, there is enough energy here to reasonably extend its drinking window just a little longer.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
The Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Lighter in colour than the 1989, more composed and a touch cooler on the nose too. Greater purity of fruit, and a little less forced, and with a touch of oak. The palate shows a convincing combination of ripe, intense cherry fruit with plenty of acidity and fine powdery tannins. (WS)
I do not drink much Amarone (although I methodically taste them every year) as I find most of it to be too pruny, somewhat oxidized, and not fresh enough, even allowing for the particular style of these wines. Yet even I get excited by such spectacular Amarones. Quintarelli has made many great ones, and I have enough bottles in my cellar to prove my faithfulness to his wines. The profound 1990 Amarone della Valpolicella is a magnificent example of Amarone. Dry and massively proportioned, with a dark plum color, this wine offers up copious quantities of chocolate, smoke, tar, and sweet pruny fruit, with intriguing nuances. Full-bodied, powerful, and rich, with no hard edges, this is a heady, sensationally-endowed wine that should drink well for 15 years. Wow! An amazing wine. (RP)
I do not drink much Amarone (although I methodically taste them every year) as I find most of it to be too pruny, somewhat oxidized, and not fresh enough, even allowing for the particular style of these wines. Yet even I get excited by such spectacular Amarones. Quintarelli has made many great ones, and I have enough bottles in my cellar to prove my faithfulness to his wines. The profound 1990 Amarone della Valpolicella is a magnificent example of Amarone. Dry and massively proportioned, with a dark plum color, this wine offers up copious quantities of chocolate, smoke, tar, and sweet pruny fruit, with intriguing nuances. Full-bodied, powerful, and rich, with no hard edges, this is a heady, sensationally-endowed wine that should drink well for 15 years. Wow! An amazing wine.||Readers who follow the Italian wine scene must argue incessantly over who makes the greatest wines of Veneto - Quintarelli or Dal Forno Romano? Both are at the top of their game, producing spectacular wines that are reference points for an area of northeast Italy that is beginning to show signs of awakening from a long period of moribund mediocrity. Wine Advocate.August, 1997
About the producer
Along with Giuseppe Quintarelli, Dal Forno Romano makes the best wines in the Veneto. The history of Dal Forno Romano, however, is much shorter, and its rise to fame much faster.