Jul 19
Tony’s was featured yesterday by Forbes magazine as one of the “top grossing restaurants” in the United States today.
“Tony’s is known for its wine as much as for its fine dining,” write the editors of Forbes. “A 1795 bottle of Madiera goes for $13,000.”
The wines of Quintarelli, wrote Antonio Galloni in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate in 2007, are “objects of desire among the world’s most well-heeled collectors,” wines jealously coveted and highly allocated in part because “pricing is astronomical even at the cellar door.”
For the ICONS OF ITALIAN WINE dinner on July 19, Tony will be opening one of the great treasures of his cellar: the 1990 Recioto della Valpolicella Riserva by Giuseppe Quintarelli.
“They called Quintarelli the ‘King of the Veneto,’” recounts Tony, who began collecting the wines in the 1980s long before most American collectors began to take notice.
Quintarelli passed away in January 2012, “but in 1990, when Quintarelli harvested the grapes for this extraordinary wine,” said Tony, “he was in his prime. It’s one of the reasons that I am particularly happy to be sharing it with my guests: I feel it’s drinking very well right now.”
Giuseppe Quintarelli’s Recioto della Valpolicella Riserva “remains one of the greatest wines I have ever tasted,” wrote Galloni in the Wine Adovcate. When the wines are at their best, he added, “they have no peers.”
Tony is thrilled to be sharing this truly peerless wine with his guests on July 19.
Space for the dinner is filling up fast: to reserve please call (713) 622-6778.
Tony Vallone presents
ICONS OF ITALIAN WINE:
AN IN-DEPTH JOURNEY THROUGH
THE GREAT WINE REGIONS OF ITALY
including
TIGNANELLO (TUSCANY)
QUINTARELLI (VENETO)
MASCARELLO (PIEDMONT)
with Italian wine expert & author
Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D.
7:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 19
$250 per person
(plus tax and gratuity)
only 40 seats available
please call (713) 622-6778 to reserve
TONY’S
3755 Richmond Ave.
Houston TX 77046
(713) 622-6778
This week, the world of fine wine mourns the loss of one of the greatest winemakers of our lifetime, Giuseppe Quintarelli, who passed from this world to a better one on Sunday at his home in the village of Negrar in the Valpolicella (Veneto, Italy). He was 84 years old and had battled Parkinson’s disease for a number of years (see this obituary by New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov).
Anyone who’s ever tasted one of the bottlings of Amarone, Recioto, or Valpolicella by the maestro can remember the first time: described by many as “life changing,” the first encounter with these masterworks is always an epiphany.
In many ways they embody the very essence of truly fine wine: while fresh and bright on the nose, they are succulent and rich on the palate, a sublime balance of lightness and power.
Here at Tony’s we’ve been collecting Quintarelli’s wines since the 1980s when they first became available on this side of the Atlantic. We even have a small allocation of his extremely rare dried-grape white wine, “il Bandito,” made only in superb vintages (the last release was 1990).
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