House of Speri hits high mark with voluptuous Valpolicella

“We don’t make wine to shock the mouth. We make wine to fill the mouth with intense flavors that are smooth, elegant and lasting. We make wine that is beautiful with food. A great vintage is one in which we make less.”
The words from Luca Speri were music to my ears, like the great Pavorotti singing Nessun Dorma in Verona’s famous amphitheater on the Piazza Bra.
Luca knows the place well; he lives and works in Verona. And while he’s no opera star, it doesn’t stop him from singing the praises of his family’s seventh generation winery — Speri Viticoltori in nearby Pedemonte.

At 34, Luca is the winery’s one-man marketing department. He travels annually to the United States and throughout Europe promoting Speri’s Valpolicella wines, including its greatest achievement Amarone Classico.
When he’s not on the road, Luca works in the family-owned vineyards and wine cellars with his father, siblings and relatives.
On a recent October evening, three days after completing the 2015 harvest (“a classic vintage,” he says), Luca was in Waltham at David Maione’s Vino Italiano presenting Speri’s new releases at a fabulous four-course wine dinner.
It was a fabulous night: Each dish and Valpolicella wine exceeded the previous in exquisite balance and taste, climaxed by the main entree: Colorado lamb chops, basil and pine nut pesto, Neopolitan potato cake and the gorgeous 2010 Speri Amarone Classico Monte Sant’ Urbano.
Speri Viticolori, which produces four red wines and 350,000 bottles annually, is considered small by Italian commercial winery standards. In fact, the Veneto region is home to most of Italy’s largest producers: Bolla, Santa Margherita, Zonin, and Gruppo Italiano Vini (60 million bottles a year). But size doesn’t matter to the Speris, who by design keep production limits low to maintain quality over quantity. It’s the reason why most Speri vintages sell out early (only 10 percent of Speri wines reach America each year.)

The Speris do most all the work themselves, controlling every aspect of what takes place in their La Roverina, La Roggia and Sant’ Urbano vineyards. Pesticides are forbidden.
“We respect the land,” Luca told the 40 dinner guests who paid $85 for the event. “Since 1874 and our first bottle, our family has made simple choices to put in the bottle only things we know from our own vines and our own grapes … “In the cellars, everything is done by family members. We know exactly what is expected to make the best wine … And this is why we make wine. It’s something that is alive. It has a personality of its own. It is a thing of beauty.”

It helps that Speri wines are rooted in vines located in one of the most unique terroirs in the world — the hilly Valpolicella Classica zone. Valpolicella, which means “valley of many cellars”, is an area covering 8,000 hectares where some of Italy’s rarest native red grapes can be found. They include Valpolicella’s main ingredients: Corvina and Corvina Veronese (meaty, tannic, aromatic); Rondinella (used for deep color and body); Molinara (acidity) and Oseleta (cherry scent).
“These grapes are delicate and can only grow here,” said Luca. “Speri wines come only from the Classica region.”
The family’s signature wine is its Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, a syrupy red wine with a split personality — it teases the palate with sweetness up front yet finishes with dry fruit and nutty flavors. It’s made from the appassimento process in which grapes are harvested and left to dry on straw mats for up to 110 days to concentrate their sugars. The raisin-like fruit is then pressed, releasing pure fruit extract high in alcohol (most Amarones are 15 percent), acidity and tannins and low in residual sugar.
The 2010 Speri Amarone was aged in a combination of French and Slovakian oak tonneaux and casks, respectively, for 42 months before release.
Amarone is a substantial wine that gets better with age, and should not be missed in any wine drinker’s lifetime.

Sticking to their exacting philosophy, the Speris did not produce an Amarone in 2014. “The growing season was subpar and the grapes were not up to our standards. This wine is our flagship and the family will not produce it if it can’t be our best,” explained Luca.
He described the 2010 and 2015 vintages as “classics”, the results of “beautiful weather and growing seasons … We didn’t have to do much but select the grapes and bottle the wines.”
Speri wines tasted at Vino Italiano are as follows. Prices reflect a 20 percent discount offered at the dinner:
• 2012 Valpolicella “La Roverina, $16 — An everyday wine for everybody. Simple, fresh, brilliant, approachable. Intense cherry and spicy notes but gentle on the palate. A blend of Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara and Oseleta grapes.
• 2013 Valpolicella Ripasso, $24 — The color, texture and tannic influence are weightier with a lot more cherry, earthy, spicy flavors. The fruit explodes mid-palate and yet it finishes dry and smooth. A versatile wine for lamb, beef, pasta and hard cheeses. Built to age 7-8 years in the cellar. Grapes: Corvina Veronese, Merlot, Rondinella.
2011 Valpolicella Classico Appassimento Sant’Urbano, $34 — A deeper, flavorful, complex cherry wine that opens to chocolate, tobacco, tar and mushroom tastes. Grapes were dried 25 days to firm up tannins and fruit extract. It’s aged two years in French oak and nine months in bottle and will continue to improve in the cellar. It’s velvety smooth. Think sweet sensations up front and a dry, crisp, long, satisfying finish. Grapes: Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, Molinara, other native varietals.
2010 Amarone Classico ($72) — The Speris do not produce an entry level Amarone like other wineries. This is the real deal. The grapes — Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, Molinara — come from the best vineyard, the high on a hill Sant’Urbano, which benefits from sunny exposures and chalky/limestone soils. It’s deep red garnet in color, full bodied and richly flavored in all of Mother Nature’s cherry fruit and rustic spices. The palate-coating transition from sweetness to dryness is stunning and mouth watering. More flavors surface in soft, subtle layers as the wine seeps into every tiny taste receptor. Let it sit in your mouth for a second longer before swallowing, and here’s the taste you’d want in your mouth for eternity.