"The 2010 Amarone della Valpolicella is an elegant beauty, with cooling herbal tones and cloves embellishing baked cherries and hints of incense. This opens with a lovely inner sweetness, its ripe red and black fruits energized by vibrant acidity. Violet florals and suggestions of cocoa swirl throughout. The 2010 finishes long—still slightly tannic yet coming into its own, leaving a mentholated freshness and a tinge of cinnamon spice that lingers on."

The 2010 vintages is sharper, more pointed and direct in comparison, and there is a tiny point of sourness on the close. This wine does not reach the same threshold for fullness, density or richness. It does come close. The wine's residual sugar measures between 5 and 6 grams per liter, which is normal for this wine, and the bouquet is redolent of familiar black fruit, raisin and spice. However, the wine feels a bit stuck in its tracks at the moment and is evidently experiencing a shy phase in its evolution. It has retreated.