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My usual complaint about my parents' wines from Laithwaites is that they are overextracted, with too much of everything apart from subtlety, restraint or elegance.
Just occasionally, the opposite proves true and you find a wine that is technically well-made, without rough edges and not too much of anything.
Unfortunately, what gets lost with the bathwater of over-extraction here is the baby of personality. What's there with this wine is pleasant enough, it's just it is lacking in fruit expression and - ironically, any noticeable amarone character (the richness that comes from using partially dried grapes in the fermentation).
Interestingly, there is quite a bit of behavioural nudging going on with the packaging - the bottle is heavy, the label sophisticated and there's that paper DOCG tag which coneys an artisan feel.
Picking up the bottle and pouring it in the glass unthinkingly, I found myself (with hindsight) primed to expect something superior; when the first couple of sips were underwhelming, I instinctively wondered if I was missing something and thought "I need to pay a bit more attention to this, there must be more to it".
In practice I wasn't missing anything. There was nothing more to it and it is just another mediocre wine.
La Tirela Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2014 (Laithwaites) dark fruited with cherries and plums; harmonious, supple and moderately substantial with little if any amarone character.
Pleasant enough.
Just occasionally, the opposite proves true and you find a wine that is technically well-made, without rough edges and not too much of anything.
Unfortunately, what gets lost with the bathwater of over-extraction here is the baby of personality. What's there with this wine is pleasant enough, it's just it is lacking in fruit expression and - ironically, any noticeable amarone character (the richness that comes from using partially dried grapes in the fermentation).
Interestingly, there is quite a bit of behavioural nudging going on with the packaging - the bottle is heavy, the label sophisticated and there's that paper DOCG tag which coneys an artisan feel.
Picking up the bottle and pouring it in the glass unthinkingly, I found myself (with hindsight) primed to expect something superior; when the first couple of sips were underwhelming, I instinctively wondered if I was missing something and thought "I need to pay a bit more attention to this, there must be more to it".
In practice I wasn't missing anything. There was nothing more to it and it is just another mediocre wine.
La Tirela Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2014 (Laithwaites) dark fruited with cherries and plums; harmonious, supple and moderately substantial with little if any amarone character.
Pleasant enough.
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