2012 Tommaso Bussola Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva 750 ml

A knock-your-socks-off selection of the estate’s best fruit, the 98-point 2012 Bussola Tommaso Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva was Vinous’s highest-ranked Amarone of the vintage. It takes “things to a much darker, deeper and more savory place than nearly any wine in its category,” wrote the publication.

Four months of drying in wooden boxes, 50 days of maceration, eight years of barrel maturation, and additional years in bottle give this legendary cuvée the textured depth and polished grace of an oil painting by an Old Master. 

A former stone mason, Tommaso Bussola inherited his uncle’s estate in Valpolicella. He soon began constructing a new blueprint for making Amarone della Valpolicella that would capture global attention.

He pruned aggressively, promoted soil health, and spent more time in the vineyards than in the cellar, reversing the conventional wisdom of his neighbors.

The estate’s vineyards possess huge advantages. They are stocked with ancient, often rare clones that produce small volumes of grapes. The old vines—now up to 70 years in age—have long lent Bussola’s wines a signature power.

But Bussola will tell you the secret to making powerhouse wines like this one is his reliance on a hefty proportion of Corvinone, a low-yielding, finicky grape that nonetheless provides immense structure and mesmerizing aromatics.

The 2012 vintage was an outstanding year for the region, with heat that pushed vines to their limit while ensuring that the resulting wines would lack for nothing in nuance and intensity. This wine spent 48 months in new tonneaux, 18 months in smaller barrels, and it has enjoyed a long stretch in the bottle.