Wines

A co-fermented field blend representing the entirety of Clementi’s vineyards, the Valpolicella Classico comprises roughly 65% Corvina, 30% Rondinella, and 5% Molinara (plus a tiny amount of Osoleta), typically harvested in mid-September. Fermented via indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, it is bottled in May following harvest after a relatively brief passage in steel—a regimen which emphasizes the brisk, red-fruited, gluggable qualities of wines from this high-altitude sub-Alpine zone.

Clementi’s Valpolicella Classico Superiore represents fruit from a mid-October harvesting pass, comprising the same basic blend as the Classico: 65% Corvina, 30% Rondinella, and 5% Molinara and Osoleta. Here, after natural alcoholic and malolactic fermentation occurs in stainless steel, the wine spends 18 months in 30-hectoliter used French-oak casks, after which it settles in steel without fining or filtering and rests in bottle for a minimum of one year before release. Juicier, riper, and judiciously more powerful than the Classico, this nonetheless comes across sleek and driving for the category, with foregrounded mineral elements and mouthwatering acidity.

Developed in the early 1980s, the ripasso method yields what effectively is a “baby Amarone”: in January or February following harvest, the newborn wine is augmented with the unpressed skins and solids of the recently fermented Amarone, which impart some of their flavors and textures to the wine and boost its alcohol level by 1.5 to 2%. A selection of some of the best lots picked for the Classico Superiore, Clementi’s Ripasso spends two years in 30-hectoliter used French-oak casks followed by an additional year or more in bottle before release. Even as category-typical notes of chocolate and dried fruits enter the picture here, the wine leads with acidity, firing a red-fruited beam across the palate and leaving the drinker refreshed rather than pummeled.

Clementi’s remarkably vibrant, layered Amarone comes from bunches picked in mid-September and dried in shallow wooden crates in a naturally ventilated room of the winery until they lose 40 to 50% of their original water weight—which takes until the following January or February. At that point, the shriveled grapes are pressed and fermented via naturally occurring yeasts (a rarity for Amarone, as its high sugar levels have difficulty fermenting all the way through without outside assistance), and the wine spends five years in 30-hectoliter casks followed by three years in bottle before reaching the market. Clementi’s is an Amarone of tension and freshness, tasting not only of dried red fruits and chocolate, but of salt and spice. Powerful without being hefty, and fully, mouthwateringly dry, it is built for the long haul, and will continue to develop complexity and depth over three decades or more of bottle aging.