THE VERDICT
The top wines here demonstrated why this category is enjoying huge popularity, but our judges felt that consumer appeal didn’t always translate to personality or balance, says James Button
‘Ripasso is a very popular wine – its importance is at its highest peak ever now’
Michael Garner
There were some wines in this line-up of 93 that earned high individual scores from our judges, suggesting that there is plenty of potential for Veneto’s ripasso and ripasso-style red wines. However, Michael Garner kicked off the discussion afterwards by asking: ‘What is the real identity that ripasso has? There is a lot of variation, and a lot of confusion as to what constitutes a classic ripasso.’
Andrew Jefford added: ‘It’s rather strange to have a whole wine category which is based on production methods and not any kind of zoning of origin, and where estates are not specifying the production method in exact terms on the wine labels. That is rather anomalous.’
Garner was also disappointed that it wasn’t possible to include the (non-ripasso) Valpolicella Superiore category in this one-day tasting, since ‘a huge proportion of those wines are also made using some percentage of dried grapes’.
Despite the consternation, our judges did find some examples which impressed: ‘Ripasso Classico was certainly the most exciting category,’ said Jefford. ‘I scored 15 of these wines at 90 points and above. But it was very much up and down.’
Aldo Fiordelli also found the tasting something of a mixed bag: ‘Even among the Classicos, we would expect something more. They were mostly from 2016, which was a good vintage, and there should be a bit more balance between extraction and fruit in most of these wines.’
Jefford contended that quality has suffered due to the rising popularity of these styles: ‘It seems to me that the category has been so comprehensively industrialised that there were a lot of wines here with no craft to them at all, thrown together to have this appeal with lots of oak and lots of sweetness, but lacking in purity and finesse.’
The other two judges agreed with Jefford’s analysis, although Garner added: ‘Ripasso has its upside too, which is that its wines are a little fleshier than Valpolicella, which can often be fairly lean and astringent – and yet it’s a bit more versatile than amarone, which is kind of difficult to match with food, so ripasso remains a useful weapon in the armoury of Veronese reds overall.
‘Ripasso is a very popular wine and its importance in the landscape of Veronese reds is at its highest peak ever now,’ Garner continued.
Our judges all acknowledged that there is little requirement for lengthy cellaring of ripasso wines. ‘It’s a style that actually isn’t that suitable for ageing for very long, and is usually best enjoyed within two or three years of the vintage,’ Garner confirmed.
Jefford suggested how producers could move forward: ‘I think the region needs to address some of these quality issues that we’ve bumped up against here; otherwise I think consumers will come to the category with high expectations and come away disappointed.’
Fiordelli summed up the judging panel’s thoughts on the day’s tasting: ‘I am a bit surprised, if not disappointed,’ he confessed, ‘mostly because, in terms of balance if not in terms of concentration or complexity, one would expect a bit more from these wines. We didn’t find any super-Valpolicella and we didn’t find any baby-amarone either. The category seems to be stuck in the middle with a lack of identity, despite its commercial appeal.’
Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit wines from the 2014, 2015, 2016 or 2017 vintages, priced from £ 12 up, to include wines from Valpolicella Ripasso DOC (including Classico, Valpantena and Superiore versions), and wines from the Rosso Veronese and Rosso del Veneto categories made with at least a proportion of semi-dried grapes, and which are based on the classic Valpolicella varieties