1998 Romano Dal Forno Amarone della Valpolicella Vigneto di Monte Lodoletta

Community Tasting Notes (25) Avg Score: 94.7 points

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  1/22/2022 - Le cave à vins wrote: flawed

  Bouchon!!!!

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  9/27/2021 - csimm wrote: 97 Points

  A very darkly postured red at first sip, giving way to beautifully sweet and deep plum, black raspberry, fig, coffee cake, black licorice, cedar chest, and unsmoked cigar notes. There is a gorgeous acidity that methodically swoops in and provides sophisticated lift to the darker-pitched core. A full and rich wine that also delivers definition and refinement. In a great spot right now with some air to allow it to stretch its legs, though I suspect this also could age for a decent clip depending on your preference for aged wines. There are certainly tertiary notes of tobacco and cedar that signal its age, but this is nowhere near tired nor ready to quit. The fruit here is flat-out delicious and savory, with a dark red raspberry streak that appears at the tail just in time to kick it up yet another notch. Everything here seems deliberate and with intent.
  
  I admittedly don't have much experience (and even less knowledge) with Amarone. That said, this particular wine makes a super compelling demand to explore this rabbit hole further. A generous contribution to the group from our host. I felt like I needed about three solid hours and a warm fireplace to sit with this wine and do a dimly lit 20/20 interview with it... "When did you go to Yale? How did you increase your New York clientele at the firm? How long were you part of the Ugandan humanitarian mission? What issue of Men's Health were you on the cover?"

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  9/25/2021 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 99 Points

  My greatest day of wine (over)consumption. Ever. (Aaron and Tiffany's pad): A_M contribution #2 (more accurately, wine contribution #2, since he contributed an immeasurable number of other things) to the wine wingding. A_M knows that, in my prodigious free time, I like to noodle through his wine holdings--csimm has become savvy and put such behind lock and key, more durable than Fort Knox--and I've told him with enduring frequency that, while he may have any number of higher rated, even more dizzyingly expensive possessions, that this was desiderata numero uno, both on its own, and out sentimentality, as Amarone was the gateway drug to my beloved, Italian vino, particularly after a visit to its only real competitor, to the best of my knowledge, Quintarelli, and for this, the day before a birthday of dread and wonder, and after 9.5 months of so far surmounting something of equal dread and wonder, my ever-perceptive friend put it onto the tasting carte. It didn't disappoint. [How's that? Saul Bellow followed by a Hemmingway chaser.] As black and impenetrable as the double V, you could put this into a swimming pool, dive in, and never be seen again, not that you'd want to, and emitting a feeling of being in the deepest, darkest, moistest wood, with elves lighting incense and unseen bakeries selling Xmas fruitcakes. Revelatory for those drinking Amarones redolent of two parts milk chocolate bar one part black licorice, this bottling, my first DF, does have huge underlying tannins and acidity, seamlessly blended with the sweet fruit. I didn't get the reds csimm did, but then, he was spitting and I wasn't, so who are you going to believe, me or your GD eyes? Anyway, I found everything from black cherries, black currants, and cassis to figs, plums and prunes and all of the dark chocolate, espresso, tobacco and cedar notes you'd expect. There's no booziness, but my, there sure is warmth, like sitting in the most beautiful 5 star lodge in the Dolomites on a 20 below night in front of a roaring fire (sorry for the plagirism, csimm, but it won't be the last time!) under a cashmere blanket. The intensity of a fire drill bell, the persistence of Berlin Alexanderplatz, the complexity of Mulholland Dr., and the overall feel of Napa cult cab meets 100 year old Spanish port meets the witches' cauldron in MacBeth. Precision, subtlety, balance and elegance wouldn't be my first descriptors for this, and yet, against all odds, it's far from diametrically opposed to them. Rather like John Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things", this has a recognizable start and a recognizable finish, but the 95% in between takes you here, there and everywhere else you might ever want to go, and a few places you're not so sure about it until it finishes. It was just a bit big, IMO, with the bouef, although on paper, that would be one of its better pairings, and since A_M had something even more on point with my wife's plum torte, I didn't have a chance to pair it with that, although that might be more promising, but like most amarones (along with some other old world new world wines like priorats and some CdPs), this may excel most as a solo act. Far from a dowager, this is drinking fabulously with no end in sight, with the structure to keep it burning like a Roman candle for many moons to come. Could it get better? Well, it could, and I'm leaving one point for upside, but if you've got one, especially if you didn't buy it from the Dal Fornos themselves upon release and give it 4 star storage and perhaps even then with the fickleness of many Euro bottlings, I'd frankly pop it sooner than later, as it was so fabulous on Saturday. Joins an illustrious group of wines I've given this score to ('90 Montrose, '12 Ovid, '16 Spottswoode), although other than the fact that it's wine and it's red, it has about as much as common as it does with them as I did with MJ around the time we were both playing (or in my case, attempting to play) b-ball. After said visit to Amarone land in '06 and watching the matriarch at Quintarelli put labels on the bottles manually--who says bespoke is dead?--then taking a couple of bottles off of their hands which we enjoyed immensely, I've had no more of that divine juice, but have had entry and middle level offerings from Allegrini, Tomassi, Masi, Zenato and although I haven't consumed one, have a Bertani at home, and while I've enjoyed all and found them very good to excellent, none have come close to the Q's, or at least my memory of them, and I've moved on to BdMs, Barolos (yes, I'm aware that the proper plural is "Baroli", but can't type that with a straight face) and STs as primary objects of desire. I conclude with a sentiment similar to csimm's and say that this plants a flag in the ground for Amarones, or at least this Amarone, as a great wine, at least in discussion with the best of Napa, the Piedmont, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Tuscany, and, maybe, the Rhone. 98-99+. Colossal shout out and thank you to A_M.

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  4/7/2021 - AudunG wrote: 90 Points

  Difficult to score such a wine. Or is it wine? 4 cm with sediments and still thick as mud. No notes from the taste, but I remember the enormous power, combined with heady alcohol (17 %) and a velvety mouth feeling. -and that I struggled to finish my glass. But impressive it was.

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  7/9/2020 - Collector1855 wrote: 96 Points

  Check in on some top Amarone: Lots of Wows, in the room with this wine. Very dark garnet. Simply wonderful nose of black forest cake, plum, licorice with a meaty tertiary side to it. Utterly rich and complex on the palate too but despite its baroque proportions so typical to Dal Forno the acidity and tannins here are impeccable and provide balance. Kudos. A very grand Amarone. 96+

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