Score: 92/100
This Italian Cabernet Sauvignon wine is made in Veneto by OnePiò Winery using the same grape-drying technique as for making Amarone wine.
After the harvest, the grapes are left to dry in trays for 20 days. Then, the fermentation is started and run in stainless steel tanks for 20 days. Finally, the wine was aged for 36 months in French oak barrels, then a further 12 months in tank, and another 6 months in bottle.
Tasting Notes
This Venetian Cabernet Sauvignon comes in a dark red color, with good intensity. But this intensity comes more from the slight oranges hues, clear sign of evolution, rather than a sheer concentration of color. Indeed, the color intensity is relatively moderate for a Cabernet Sauvignon, clearly a sign we’re not in Bordeaux, Napa Valley or South America with this Cabernet. Perhaps a good sign, since, let’s remind ourselves, this is a Cab from Veneto, Italy.
The nose though, smells everything but shy, surprisingly!
It is dominantly filled with deep and vibrant sweet spices-scented prune liqueur and blackberry aromas. Powerful jammy notes of dark and ripe red berries, lifted by a minty and peppery spiciness, augmented and deepened by Christmas pudding spices, vanilla, chocolate and caramel. Not bad to smell at! In fact, tempting…
Put the wine in your mouth, and strikes an unbelievably smooth sensation of warmth and fruit power.
Literally (well almost!), the wine explodes in your mouth in a firework of prune liqueur, jammy blackberry, Christmas cake spices, burnt caramel, vanilla, and so much more. It is so powerful and all coated in a smooth oily texture, with smooth and relatively-loose tannins, that it tastes like a fermented raisin juice. A very unusual, most-probably overripe expression of Cabernet Sauvignon. But one has to acknowledge, if he/she’s into generous ripe and dried fruit flavors combined with depth of spiciness, that it IS a pleasing and rarely-this-concentrated expression of the grape.
Clear, and keenly, a serious Cabernet wine, with a taste you’ve probably never experienced before. Perhaps because OnePiò winery is mainly a producer of Valpolicella and Amarone, this Cabernet seems to have a powerful Veronese signature to it, somehow combining the generosity of Cabernet, with the exuberance and concentration from this part of Veneto’s approach to winemaking.
Certainly, a wine to experience for it power, overall balance, and uniqueness…
Enjoy 🙂
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2010 OnePiò Winery Amarone della Valpolicella Classico DOCG, Italy
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