2009 Ar.Pe.Pe. Valtellina Superiore Sassella Ultimi Raggi Riserva
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The 2009 Valtellina Superiore Sassella Ultimi Raggi is beguiling, rich, dense and powerful. Cinnamon, dried dark cherry, leather, smoke and licorice come together in a full-bodied, somewhat rustic wine with no shortage of character. The Ultimi Raggi is made from the last fruit on the vine to ripen, and is therefore sweeter and richer through the mid-palate, with more palate weight and overall density than is found in most of these wines. I loved it.
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Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
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Ultimi Raggi means "last rays" in Italian, and it's impossible not to think of the pink and gold colors that illuminate the last tips of the Italian Alps as the setting sun makes its final descent of the day. The 2009 Valtellina Superiore Riserva Sassella Ultimi Raggi expresses that terrestrial poetry with dark fruit intensity. Of the various samples tasted from Ar.Pe.Pe., this wine is the most open, immediate and generous. It reveals a slightly darker appearance and rounder fruit flavors of cherry and dried blackberry. This is the most primary of the wines in this fight. This single-vineyard expression is only made in the best years. Only 6,000 bottles were produced. The wine ferments on the skins for 30 days in oak, and it then ages in a combination of chestnut wood (for five years) and cement (for an additional three years).