Quintarelli Giuseppe, Amarone della Valpolicella, Classico Superiore 2015 - 75cl

No name in Valpolicella carries the weight of Quintarelli. Giuseppe Quintarelli — the maestro, who died in 2012 and whose family carries on exactly as he did — made Amarone the slow, patient, uncompromising way, and this 2015 is the result. The grapes, chiefly Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella, are dried on racks for months until they're half raisin, fermented slowly, then aged around seven years in large Slavonian oak casks. It arrives at 16.5%.

For all that concentration, it's astonishingly graceful. Woodland herbs and underbrush give way to wild berries, cinnamon, shaved cedar and crushed rock. There's dried plum, brandied cherry and sweet cigar, dried flowers and citrus peel — and beneath it all an electric acidity that stops the richness ever turning heavy. The tannins are fine and web-like. The finish stains the glass with raspberry and violet. Off-dry in feel, warming, and impossibly long.

Drinking beautifully now, but built to age for decades — comfortably to 2040 and well beyond. Open it for something that matters. It's among the most expensive Amarones in the world, and one of the very few that justifies it.

How to Serve

Serve at 18°C in a large glass. It's mature and precious, so decant gently and only shortly before pouring — enough to wake it, not tire it. Stand old bottles upright a day ahead and handle them with care.

Where to Drink It

• Locanda Locatelli, Marylebone — the setting a bottle like this deserves.
• Wiltons, Jermyn Street — old-world dining for an old-world great.
• Bocca di Lupo, Soho — northern Italian plates to match a Veneto legend.

Food Pairings

Braised short rib or osso buco — something rich and slow-cooked to meet its warmth. Or the classic: a plate of aged hard cheese after dinner, with the wine as the whole event.