2011 Amarone della Valpolicella Monte Lodoletta

Romano Dal Forno and his brother in law Cesare Spada own roughly 26 hectares (64 acres) of vines (all planted at a very tight 12,000 vines per hectare) in the Val d’Illasi, in the eastern section of the extended Valpolicella production zone. Currently, the oldest vineyards were planted only in 1997 (because the older vines were ripped out to plant the new state of the art vineyards). At that time Dal Forno reduced the presence of Corvinone (the Valpolicella grape variety that was always most typical of the Val d’Illasi) as he has found over the years that Corvina ripens more evenly and does not pose the risk of producing wines with a green edge, like Corvinone does. How times change: in decades past, Corvinone was a big favorite of the area’s farmers, because its bigger bunches produce many more grapes than does Corvina, but it’s currently falling out of favor, something that I noticed while visiting other Valpolicella estates.

It might interest readers to know that the Monte Lodoletta made famous by Dal Forno’s wine label doesn’t really exist; the winery is located in the area of Lodoletta but the mountain (monte, in Italian) is nowhere to be seen. In fact the area’s mountainous slope is called Monte Garzon Dal Forno wishes to underscore the fact that though his estate looks like it’s located on flatland, it’s actually located at 300 meters above sea level. Hence he decided to add the word monte to Lodoletta, the toponym of the area his estate is located at. On the winemaking front, beginning with the 2011 vintage, Dal Forno reduced the length of time his wines spend in oak, moving from having them spend three years in barriques to two (always new oak).

It might interest readers to know that the Monte Lodoletta made famous by Dal Forno’s wine label doesn’t really exist; the winery is located in the area of Lodoletta but the mountain (monte, in Italian) is nowhere to be seen. In fact the area’s mountainous slope is called Monte Garzon, but Dal Forno wished to underscore the fact that though his estate looks like it’s located on flatland, it’s actually located at 300 meters above sea level. Hence he decided to add the word monte to Lodoletta, the toponym of the area his estate is located at. On the winemaking front, beginning with the 2011 vintage, Dal Forno reduced the length of time his wines spend in oak, moving from having them spend three years in barriques to two (always new oak).