The 2007 Amarone della Valpolicella is an attractive wine endowed with sweet red berries, crushed flowers, spices and tobacco. There is good mid-palate juiciness and fine balance in the glass. At the same time, this is a fairly restrained style of Amarone that doesn't quite reach the heights of the best years here. In exchange, readers will find a wine that is totally open and ready to drink today. I wouldn't hold on to the 2007 too long, but is delicious right now. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2019. Proprietor Marco Sartori embodies all of the best qualities of Valpolicella's top artisan growers. A meticulous focus on quality means that the top wines - the Amarone and Reciotos - are only produced in the very best vintages. Sartori favors a relatively laid-back style for his Amarone. The grapes are pressed on the first day allowed by regulations, with a goal of keeping residual sugar in the 5.5-8.0-grams per liter range. Over the last few vintages Sartori has begun giving his wines 24-26 months in oak, 6 months less than before, and more time in bottle, again with the goal of maintaining as much freshness as possible. All of the new releases are highly recommended, but the 2008 Valpolicella is the under-the-radar gem in this lineup. Importers: Chambers & Chambers, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 642-5500; Artisan Wine, Norwalk, CT; tel. (203) 866-4552

8 Roccolo Grassi is a point of reference in Valpolicella and a symbol of the overextracted, super-dense style epitomized here. The wine is redolent of black fruit, jammy blackberry, plum cake, bitter chocolate and polished granite. There’s a pretty, linear and clean quality behind all that bold fruit. ——M.L.(12/1/2011)—— 94