We’re beyond THRILLED to kick things off with this! We rarely see Amarone around these parts. Especially a 98 point Riserva with a 30% price drop.

Not just any Amarone. A Riserva well-deserving of its hefty $140 original retail price. Whether you’re a collector, connoisseur, or just a wino who wants to occasionally enjoy the finer things in life, you should have at least one bottle on hand. Trust us, you’ll have ZERO regret when you taste it.

Packed and stacked is the theme here. Not a wine for the faint of heart, it delivers a rush of luscious, sweet, ripe black and red fruits - plum, strawberry and dark chocolate covered raisins. And don’t get us started with the violets, sweet vanilla, dates, toffee, melted licorice and warm chai spice all lining up for their turn. Soft, melted tannins caress across your palate. Reminds us of a plumped up, puffed out, and musclebound Zinfandel with grace. Of course, this will age gracefully for years to come.

Antonio Galloni reminisces: “I remember my dad telling me when I was a kid that Amarone was one of the world’s great wines. Just behind Barolo, in his view. Ever since then, these wines have been a source of endless fascination. In the mid and late 1990s, when Italy’s top restaurants still kept well-stocked cellars of older wines, it was possible to find aged Amarone for extremely reasonable prices, making it quite fun and relatively easy to learn about the wines. Sadly, those days are long gone.”

Or are they back today, just for a day?

Galloni also points out that “Zenato is one of the historic names in Valpolicella. The estate makes a wide range of wines, but truly excels with Amarone. A recent vertical tasting of Zenato’s Amarone Riserva Sergio Zenato going back to 1980 was eye-opening for many reasons, not the least of which was seeing just how well the wines age.”

While he has yet to rate this one, for James Suckling, this remains one of his HIGHEST rated Amarones EVER and while Sergio Zenato sits up there alongside the Kings of Amarone, Giuseppe Quintarelli and Romano Dal Forno with this Wine Spies exclusive 98 points for 98 bucks deal, it can be yours at a mere fraction of what great Amarone is worth.

98 Points – James Suckling

“An Amarone for the future with terrific richness and tannin power, offering dried fruit, figs, blackberries, bark, mushrooms and hints of wood. Full-bodied and very structured with a powerful finish. It needs a lot of time to come around. Try it after 2024.”