Amarone della Valpolicella, Punta 470, Ca' Rugate 2021
James Suckling 94
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Why this wine
Ca' Rugate built their name on Soave and brought the same restraint to Amarone, which is a style that usually loses its shape. Grown at 470 metres, the acidity survives the drying and the wine stays a wine rather than a statement. Among the most awarded producers in the Veneto.
At a glance
- Grape
- Corvina 45%, Corvinone 40%, Rondinella 15%
- Region
- Veneto, Italy
- Alcohol
- 15.00%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Long (10-20 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Cheese, Rich & Creamy Dishes
How it tastes
Intensely flavoured but elegant, with concentrated ripe blueberry, blackberry and cherry lifted by spicy oak. The palate is rich, full-bodied and complex, beautifully balanced, and there is a warm savoury raisined note and a peppery edge through the long finish. Corvina 45%, Corvinone 40%, Rondinella 15%.
The producer
The Tessari family have run this business since the early 1900s and renamed it Ca' Rugate in 1986 after the volcanic hills where the vineyards lie; Michele Tessari is the fourth generation, and recent years have brought a new cellar and an expansion into Valpolicella with vineyards at Montecchia di Crosara, taking the estate to 90 hectares. Punta 470 takes its name from its altitude: six hectares at 470 metres above sea level in the hills around Montecchia di Crosara, on gravel and limestone that drains freely, yielding 90 quintals per hectare and holding enough acidity to keep the wine food-friendly. The grapes were hand-picked in the last two weeks of September and laid flat in small wooden boxes of about six kilograms each so air could move through them, then dried gently in well-ventilated rooms for four to five months. They were crushed during the winter and fermented with natural yeasts, the must moved to 500-litre oak casks to finish, and the wine matured in wood for twenty-five to thirty months before bottling.
Food and drinking
Serve at 17–19°C and decant an hour ahead. Good with slow-cooked beef cheeks, wild boar ragù, a mature Parmesan or a plain risotto. Drinking now and will cellar for ten to twenty years. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.