“Wine Enthusiast Essential Buying Guide 2009” is an international guide that includes more than 40,000 ratings and reviews of the best wines that its tasting panel has sampled since 1999.

Also Villa Spinosa's wines were considered and tasted by the tasting panel. Monica Larner, Wine Enthusiast Magazine's Italian Editor and member of the Italian Association of Sommeliers, tasted our wines.

Mrs Larner says that “Villa Spinosa owns some of the most beautiful vineyards in Valpolicella and selects the best fruit for this intense, succulent Amarone”.

The rating starts from 80 (acceptable) to 100 (the pinnacle of quality). Villa Spinosa's Amarone were all part of the “highly recommended” wine range and got ratings between 91 and 93.

We report what Monica Larner wrote on Wine Enthusiast:

-Amarone 2000, rating 92

The nose offers notes of milk chocolate,vanilla-cherry and spice as well as warmer tones of white mushroom, earth and baked apple. The mouthfeel is subdued, but balanced.

-Amarone 1999, rating 91

The emphasis here is on elegance, not power or intensity. The wine offers carefully measured notes of apple-nut, cherry, vanilla, mineral, dried lavander and no clear aromatic protagonist. The wine's age is discernable in the mouth and this suggests that you should not wait to drink it.

-Amarone 1998, rating 93

The wine exhibits fine spice and nicely measured notes of cinammon,cumin,leather,espresso and dried prune. Its aromas are those you's expect froma Turkish bazaar. There's a slightly brown hue to its colour but overall it is thick and concentrated with sweet, sticky flavors and noticeable succulence.