This declassified Amarone from the legendary Quintarelli estate blends 55% Corvina and Corvinone, 30% Rondinella, and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Nebbiolo, Croatina, and Sangiovese. It shows pressed blackberry and cherry liqueur with hints of herbal greenness and bitter chocolate. Made using traditional appassimento drying and aged 6–7 years in oak botte, it’s a generous, intense wine with great depth and balanced 15.5% alcohol. A tribute to Giuseppe Quintarelli’s artisanal legacy, this Rosso offers exceptional complexity and longevity.

Jamessuckling.com | JS 95
Published: Mar 21, 2024

Restrained black cherries, elegant spices, incense and eucalyptus leaves. The attack is soft and refined with a full body, velvety tannins and zesty yet integrated acidity. Long and intense flavors of cherries and spices. Toasty finish. Drink or hold.

The Wine Advocate | RP 94
Published: Dec 5, 2024
Drink: 2025-2045

Because the Quintarelli family did not make a 2016 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, fruit for that wine came to this wine instead. The 2016 Rosso del Bepi does have a hint of herbal greenness (which is why the top-tier wine was not produced) followed by pressed blackberry and cherry liqueur. I also get a pinch of bitter chocolate. However, this is a declassified Amarone, and you get a good sense of its depth and complexity. The fruit underwent up to four months of appassimento and went into oak botte for six to seven years. It was bottled in March 2023 with 15.5% alcohol (compared to the 16.5% you see in most vintages of Amarone). It offers intensity and generosity. The Rosso del Bepi was made in 2010, 2014 and 2016.

I always try to schedule my tasting trips to Valpolicella during appassimento, or when harvested fruit is left to air-dry in specially ventilated hangars. The fruit loses much of its water mass during the process, thus increasing flavors, concentration and alcohol. Of the many estates I regularly visit, Giuseppe Quintarelli is among my favorites because of the traditional approach taken. There is one hangar dedicated to grapes drying in plastic crates, and on the other side of the winery, there is a second hangar with grapes carefully laid out on bamboo racks. You also see the celebrated trecce, or "braids," of grapes hung from a ceiling rafter. Each braid weighs 30 kilograms. It is such a beautiful site.

While visiting the Giuseppe Quintarelli winery with its cramped spaces and dark corners, I tasted with grandsons Lorenzo and Francesco in the very same tasting room I first visited 20 years ago with the master himself.

Carved oak botte stand outside the tasting room. One shows an enormous peacock, a symbol of purity, and around it are symbols of the family and their vineyards. The Giuseppe Quintarelli estate counts 11 hectares of vines on limestone and basalt soils. Annual production is 60,000 bottles. Only estate fruit is used, although extra fruit is purchased in some years if there is an emergency such as significant hail.

Winemaker

The late, great Maestro del Veneto, Giuseppe Quintarelli, succeeded in establishing his mythical and legendary estate during an amazing sixty-year career. All of the tradition, love, heart, and soul of crafting one of the world's finest wines continue at the Quintarelli home and winery in the hills north of Verona. Giuseppe's daughter Fiorenza, his son-in-law Giampaolo, and his grandsons Francesco and Lorenzo are all keeping a close watch over the family's legacy.

It is impossible to speak about Quintarelli without superlatives. The name itself stands for so much: the family, the wines, a style, a tradition, a way of doing things. After all the time, effort, patience, and care that go into the making of a bottle of Quintarelli, it truly does mean so much more than wine. Giuseppe, fondly known as Bepi to those closest to him, was a perfectionist in every way. From the beautiful handwritten labels, to the best possible quality cork, to the exquisite wine in the bottles, the Quintarelli name is a stamp of authenticity and the ultimate indication of an artisanal, handmade, uncompromising wine of the highest quality.

Nothing is ever hurried at Quintarelli. The wines take their time and are given the time they need. In the still, quiet calm of the family cellars above the town of Negrar, along the winding via del Cere, deep in the Valpolicella zone, the wine from the family's hillside vineyards ages patiently and gracefully in large casks until it is ready. Every release is a masterpiece, a testament to time, tradition, skill, and passion, the creations of a master artisan. You can't really compare these wines to any other in the region, or anywhere else in the world. They really are in a class and a category all their own. 

Multiple passages through the vineyards produce a myriad of wines, many produced using the appassimento technique whereby the grapes are dried on rush mats before being pressed and made into wine. From the delicious and seductive Bianco Secco, to the benchmark Valpolicella that created a revolution in the thinking about what it was possible to produce in this region, to the Rosso del Bepi and Amarones produced according to the quality of the harvest, to the otherworldly Recioto and the exceedingly rare Bandito, the sheer artistry and depth of the range is truly exceptional. A bottle of Quintarelli never disappoints!

Blend: 55% Corvina and Corvinone, 30% Rondinella, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc Nebbiolo, Croatina, Sangiovese