Panel tasting: Valpolicella Ripasso & ripasso-style reds

Ripasso wines have rapidly taken market share in the Veneto region, and the style was granted its own DOC in 2010. But, asks Michael Garner, are the wines quality-driven, or just a marketing ploy?

Veronese winemakers seem to have hit the jackpot with Valpolicella Ripasso. Made with indigenous grape varieties (Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella et al) and using a highly individual production technique, ripasso has found instant favour with consumers who, moreover, are prepared to pay a good price for it. Yet dig a little deeper and all is not quite as rosy as appearances might suggest.

What is ripasso?

The ripasso technique involves macerating or refermenting young Valpolicella on the lees of recioto or amarone, both being made from semi-dried grapes – this was originally conceived in the region as a way for producers to recycle this by-product. Masi winemaker Nino Franceschetti used the sugar-rich lees left over from making amarone to produce Campofiorin in 1964. The wine’s success soon led others to follow suit, and the rest is history.

The length of the ripasso period determines the final character of the wine: if it spends just a couple of days on the lees, a fruitier, more approachable wine is the result; longer contact of up to two weeks can give rise to a much weightier and more nuanced style – though at the same time, the risk of off-aromas becomes much greater. For this reason, the fruitier version of ripasso is often the safer bet.

In recognition of its rise in popularity, ripasso was granted its own DOC in 2010 for production in all three constituent areas of Valpolicella – Classico,

Valpantena and the remaining DOC Valpolicella area (also known as Valpolicella Orientale locally). By the middle of the decade, it already accounted for 45% of the total production of red wine in the area. Indeed, the style has proven such a winner that some winemakers seek to replicate its characteristics using an alternative method, incorporating a proportion of grapes with a short period of appassimento (drying) in a wine.

And herein lies the root of the problem: the red wines of Verona are in serious danger of becoming defined by the use of dried grapes. The threat to Valpolicella and Valpolicella Superiore, when made entirely from fresh grapes, has become a very real one, and indeed these wine styles already represent less than 30% of the area’s total production.

In response, a growing number of producers are insisting that it is no longer necessary to ‘enrich’ wines with these techniques, particularly since increasingly hot summers seem almost to guarantee a crop of ripe fruit entirely capable of delivering fuller-bodied wines that do not require the ‘boost’ of either ripasso or appassimento.

At its best, the ripasso style can be very convincing. It’s easy to like and to appreciate: the defining features of richness, softness and velvety texture offer wine lovers a glimpse of the aromas and flavours of amarone, yet at a fraction of the cost.

Rarely wines to keep, most examples of ripasso are best within a few years of vintage.