Pra Amarone Della Valpolicella 2011

Ideally drink until 2031. Decant for 2 hours.

A beautiful deep ruby in colour, this really is a blockbuster of a wine if ever there was one! Aromas of ripe plums, cherries, herbs and spice explode from the glass. The flavours are concentrated and rich. Cherry and plum mixed with citrus, spice, herbs and a note of chocolate combine perfectly. The wine is complex and multi layered with great acidity that needs to balance with fine tannins and a massive 17% – it manages to do this fantastically well. The finish is long and luxurious with note of chocolate and spice at the end.

This is a great wine to drink on its own or match it with roast beef, lamb, game, stews and strong cheese.

Graziano Pra is a name synonymous with some of the best wines in Italy – and this is no exception! The grapes are placed in a drying room for 2 months which concentrates the flavours within the grapes. They are then macerated in stainless steel vats for 15 days, go through a secondary malolactic fermentation before spending 3 years in oak barrels to mature prior to bottling.

Graziano Pra spent a long time looking for the very best vineyard site. He eventually settled on a site that was high up the marl walls of the Valle di Mezzane, near Verona. It gave the perfect combination of soil, sun and cooling breezes associated with the Monti Lessinin Hills and the 500m elevation. The yields are very low but the quality is very high resulting in wines with more character, body and depth.