Here's a true beauty from the land of pink marble, majestic mountains and the romantic Shakespearean drama Romeo and Juliet. The Bertani 2009 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is elegantly composed and beautifully softened by time in the barrel and bottle. The bouquet is quite spectacular with dried plums and baked currants, followed closely by sweet tar, leather and smoky tar. The wine shows lots of appassimento purity, and you taste that distinctive intensity that comes from wines made with air-dried fruit. The wine is thick, syrupy and viscous, wrapping generously over the palate. This is a very special bottle.

This opens with quintessential Amarone aromas of baked plum, dark spice, underbrush, leather and pipe tobacco. The full-bodied palate offers dried cherry, prune, toasted hazelnut, star anise and clove set against fine-grained tannins. Drink through 2024.

An elegant red, medium- to full-bodied and mineral-driven, offering hints of tar-tinged smoke and cured tobacco as a savory foil for the wild cherry and singed orange-peel flavors. Fresh and well-knit, with fine-grained tannins emerging on the lightly spiced finish. Drink now through 2029. 6,500 cases made, 3,600 cases imported.