Winemaker Notes

The 2014 is a vintage that put us to the hard test and also pushed us to make important decisions to maintain a quality standard on wines produced at the level of previous vintages. 

In fact, the vegetative restart took place in advance compared to the last 5 vintages, with a regular spring and blooming that took place at the end of May, early June. 

On June 24th there was a storm phenomenon with medium intensity hail that affected the whole estate with greater intensity on the northern area of the winery (about 3-4 Ha), leaving the vineyards on the hills with the least affected. 

From the end of June until mid-October, then the end of the harvest, there was a reversal of the climate trend, with the months of July, August and September in the name of rain. 

As already mentioned, all this has made the skins of the grapes thinner and therefore much more fragile with the consequent impossibility of putting all the grapes in the drying rooms. 

For this reason, already in mid-August we decided to not produce Amarone and to concentrate all our forces to produce a Valpolicella worthy of the name. 

The result of all this was realized with a total production of about 27.000 bottles of Valpolicella 14 (30 % less than in a normal year) and missing this vintage for Amarone. 

Critical Acclaim

95pts James Suckling

A beautiful, polished red with dried-berry, plum, floral and cedar aromas. Full body and a flavorful finish. Extremely refined and polished, more so than many past vintages. Already gorgeous, but needs a year or two to come together. Better after 2022.

95pts Wine & Spirits

The 2014 growing season in Valpolicella was plagued by hail in June and copious rain through mid-October, leaving the grape skins fragile and, in the estimation of Romano Dal Forno, not suitable for making Amarone. Instead, he used all of the fruit he and his team could salvage to make this wine, selecting only the best bunches and drying them for 45 days. After fermentation, the wine rested in new oak barrels for two years and another three in bottle, developing a rich complexity that reads more like an Amarone than a typical Valpolicella. It unfolds with flavors of warmed cherry…Stephanie Johnson, February 2021

94pts Vinous

The 2014 is a unique rendition of Dal Forno’s Valpolicella Superiore Monte Lodoletta. It’s a remarkably pretty wine, displaying crushed ripe strawberries and plums with cinnamon, clove, vanilla bean and a cooling hint of mint. The textures are velvety, coating all that they touch in glycerol fruit concentration, yet somehow coming across as zesty and spry, contrasting weight with saturating notes of tart blackberry and savory spice. There’s a bit of a lull in the midpalate, yet it hardly takes away from the experience…Eric Guido, February 2021