Masi Costasera Amarone Classico 2005
Veneto, Italy
Suggested Retail Price $62

Winter is nearly a calendar month away from coming to an end. So rich and powerful, elegant and distinctive red wines are still on call to match savory dishes and cheeses at the winter table. One of the world’s great matches for a special winter dinner of say a braised beef dish (whether pot roast or osso bucco) is an Amarone from the heart of the Classico zone of Valpolicella. Here the finest vineyards for this unique wine are found on the rocky hills of crumbled reddish limestone facing west over Lake Garda. The varieties are 70% Corvina, 25% Rondinella, and 5% Molinara.

An Amarone is a wine made from harvested grapes allowed to dry in well-ventilated rooms for three to six months after harvest. The grapes lose up to a third, sometimes half of their juice, concentrating both texture, weight and flavors when the grapes are finally crushed and fermented. If allowed to ferment till all the sugar is transformed, then the wine is an Amarone, or ‘Big Bitter’ as the wine is affectionately known. If the fermentation is stopped with appreciable residual sugar then this semisweet wine is called Recioto (but that is a story and wine for another column).

Amarones have a full, round velvety texture with flavors of bitter cherry, dried cranberry, and raisin with a sprinkling of spice along with accents of leather and chocolate. Complex and nuanced, these are wines to enjoy slowly with the richest casseroles or fine aged Parmesan or Gorgonzola at the meal’s end.

Masi, a sixth-generation family owned estate, is widely considered one of the handful of great Amarone producers in the Veneto and are founding members of the ‘Amarone Families’ an association of the area’s top producers dedicated to preserving and upholding the finest quality of Amarone wines.

Peter Lehmann Shiraz, Mourvèdre, Grenache Old Vines The Seven Surveys
Barossa Valley, Australia – Stelvin Cap
Suggested Retail Price $19.99

Peter Lehmann’s ‘Seven Surveys’ is a New World wine that should appeal to lovers of classic Rhône Valley reds. Using three of the Rhône valley’s traditional red varieties, Peter Lehmann blends old-vine Barossa plantings of Syrah (51%), Mourvèdre (25%), and Grenache (24%) to produce a wine that is complex in flavor yet has freshness and real lift on the palate. Bright red fruited aromas mix with game, truffle, and earth on the palate along with white pepper accents. The texture is a supple, glossy satin with a freshness and vivacity very unlike some people’s impression that all Barossa reds are thick and heavy. A trace of fine-grained tannin on the long finish serves to focus spicy, truffled flavors.

Each variety is fermented on its own, then the three are blended and aged 12 months in seasoned French and American hogsheads: these larger oak vats allow the wine to mature without adding unnecessary vanilla oaky notes. Enjoy now with roasted game and meat dishes or casseroles with touches of rosemary and olives. This wine will also work with vegan dishes such as grilled mushrooms. Note that since the wine is bottled under Stelvein screw cap, open and decant before serving to allow the aromas and flavors to respond and develop with air.

Inniskillin Vidal Sparkling Ice Wine 2005 – VQA
Niagra Penninsula, Canada
Suggested Retail Price $75.99 per half bottle

Canada’s first Ice Wine was made in 1984: an Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine. Today Canada, with its average production of over 50,000 cases a year, is the world’s largest producer of this delicious and risky dessert wine. Risky because to produce Ice Wine you need nature’s fickle help in the form of low temperatures (a minimum of 17°F) that freezes most of the water in ripe grapes hanging on their leafless vines. With most of the water in the grapes frozen, what’s left is an incredibly concentrated juice with high levels of sugar, acid, and flavor elements. Pressed before the ice thaws, the yield is a tiny amount of juice that ferments into a low-alcohol (9%), intensely sweet wine with thrilling high, crisp acidity for balance. I like to think that the icy brilliance of this wine is a reflection of winter’s crystalline atmosphere on a bright frosty day.

Inniskillin then goes one step further in making a rare, unique wine: the juice is fermented in a sealed tank, trapping the carbon dioxide given off by fermentation. With nowhere to go, the gas is absorbed by the juice, then the wine is carefully bottled once the fermentation is stopped. The result is sparkling ice wine which adds bubbles to lift and carry the apricot, honey flavors etched by acidity into a crisp elixir. Serve with paté to start a Valentine’s Day meal or to finish a meal with cheese.

Hess Collection Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder 2006
Napa Valley, California
Suggested Retail Price $45

This estate-grown and bottled cabernet reflects its mountain vineyard origin in its intense fruit, structure, and mineral quality. The mineral quality brings a savoriness that balances the fruit and adds to the complexity of this elegant wine grown on soils of clay-loam over shale. The 2006 is from vineyards on Mount Veeder that range from 600 feet to over 1,100 feet above the Napa Valley floor in the mountain range separating Napa from Sonoma.

The Hess Collection Cabernet Sauvignon shows engaging notes of cedar combined with classic accents of tea-leaf, dry herbs and a dollop of black currant at its core. Complexity also comes from blending 12% Malbec and 1% each Merlot and Petit Verdot with 86% Cabernet Sauvignon. Fluid and glossy in texture, the wine shows exemplary balance with its oak and tannin suggesting that – as delicious as the wine is now, if given some decanting time – it should improve over the next three to five years. The finish combines these dry herbal and cedary notes along with a hint of smoky toast that comes from aging the wine for 18 months in 50% new French oak barrels.