From: Veneto, Italy
Price: $17
Serve with: Hearty stews, game, goat
This burly but enchanting red wine could be called a poor man's Amarone, a famous Italian red concentrated by drying the grape before pressing but long gone from this price range. It's a wine of considerable power, with concentrated blackberry and black cherry flavors and nuances of earthiness, smoked meat, espresso and chocolate. There's a hint of a dusty character not unlike Amarone. This is not a wine for the faint of palate. You have to like a big wine.
--Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun