Amarone della Valpolicella Classico della Mattonara Riserva 2008 Zyme

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Robert Parker (97)

This wine is seamless and fearless, and there's little else that really needs to be said about it, except that, at $850 per bottle, there's probably some more explaining to do. Packaged in a release of 4,500 heavy glass bottles, the Zýmè 2008 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva La Mattonara is a massive wine with wonderful exaggerations of ripe fruit, oak spice, dark aromas and thick texture. It all plays out beautifully in the end, and it will appeal to Amarone fans and other big-wine enthusiasts who are not given pause by its price tag or its 16% alcohol. The traditional blend sees Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, Molinara, Oseleta and Croatina. There's nothing at all shy about this wine, whose name evokes the Italian word for "brick" or "hammer." Even that oversize and profoundly eco-unfriendly bottle could be used to hammer nails into a brick. Its character is dark, brooding and spicy, but the appassito fruit is impeccably balanced, period.

BOW (9)