Held back extra years in the cellar, the Musella 2012 Amarone della Valpolicella Senza Titolo shows lovely tertiary tones of dried fruit, hot asphalt, black licorice and spice. There is a good amount of appassimento sweetness in this wine with dried plum and raisin, but the wine avoids heaviness. The 2011 vintage has bigger tannins, but this hot-vintage expression is quite smooth in terms of finish and overall mouthfeel. The wine carries a 16% alcohol content. Production is limited to 1,000 bottles.

With only 800 examples made, this is a special bottle, a late release, that is recognized by its distinctive label that features a cartoonish face by artist Alceo Polronieri. The Musella 2011 Amarone della Valpolicella Senza Titolo is hard to nail down, with slightly thorny or stemmy aromas on the one hand and sweet aromas of baked fruit on the other. Now, 10 years old, the wine has maintained the freshness and the linear contours of its fruit, yet it also shows some of the softness and the excesses of the hot vintage. This is a specially crafted wine made from a blend of 70% Corvina and Corvinone, 10% Rondinella, 10% Oseleta and the rest is Croatina and some other indigenous grapes. The wine sees three months of appassimento and five years of aging in large oak casks.

The 2009 Amarone della Valpolicella Senza Titolo (with only 900 bottles produced) is a special and carefully crafted wine. My technical sheet states that the wine is entirely made by hand, without the use of electricity. I'm not sure how this is possible, but I take the statement at face value. Dark fruit and spice ooze forth from the bouquet, and the mouthfeel is satisfyingly rich and succulent. The wine counts 11.3 grams per liter of residual sugar, and you absolutely taste that sweetness. The oak used here is not highly toasted, and this more-neural quality of wood helps to bring your attention back to the purity that characterizes this full-bodied Amarone. The blend is 70% Corvina and Corvinone, 10% Rondinella, 10% Oseleta, 7% Croatina and 3% complementary grapes.