2016 Palazzo Maffei Amarone Della Valpolicella DOCG

2016 Palazzo Maffei Amarone Della Valpolicella DOCG

After drinking the almighty Palazzo Maffei Amarone Riserva 2011, I went on to search for more vintages to try. The 2016 was perhaps not the most powerful vintages, but it’s still a very decent vintage, so with the past experience, I went ahead and decanted this wine for 2 hours, in hope I don’t get a huge overload of dried grapes and immense headache with 15% (16% for the 2015 vintage) alcohol! My judgment was right, the 2 hours decanting helped mellow the wine down a fair bit, and it was not overpowering anymore. A whiff and the dried fruit bouquet was relatively muted. A sip and I congratulated myself with the right decanting time, there wasn’t any dried harshness, tire grips, or enormous unresolved fruits like 2011 and 2015, it was more like a Ripasso, very smooth and elegant. It didn’t giveaway that it was a vintage from 2016, in fact, it felt a bit more aged due to the balance and smoothness of the body. Bear in mind this wasn’t the Riserva, thus it was a lot more approachable when drank young.