Ripasso
by Brenda Francis
October 20, 2006
If you've been drinking wine since the seventies or eighties, you'll remember the wildly popular days of Soave and Valpolicella. Both of these wines hail from the Veneto region of Italy. A few decades ago, Veneto's production grew to meet the needs of the thirsty American market. While Valpolicella and Soave were very popular, the eventual growth in production resulted in ordinary wines lacking depth or character.
While hundreds of thousands of bottles of simple wines were destined for our shores, a few producers in Veneto were making very respectable wines from grapes groomed for quality. Amarone (ah-mah-ROH-neh), the flagship wine of the Veneto, was not known to most of those of us quaffing down Valpolicella and Bardolino here in the U.S., but it would soon change Veneto's style and reputation in our market.
Amarone is made by drying the finest grapes in a cool, ventilated room for several months. Once most of the water has evaporated, the grapes have extremely concentrated flavors, tannins, and acidity. When their juice is fermented completely dry, the resulting wine is called Amarone. When some residual sugar is left behind after fermentation, it is called Recioto.
The Italians didn't waste a trace of the precious dried Amarone grapes. Winemakers found that adding the pumice of the Amarone, the grape solids leftover after fermentation, to Valpolicella, they created something quite special. This process is called ripasso.
Ripassos are appropriately nicknamed 'Baby Amarones' and possess many qualities of Amarone, without having to pay $50 a bottle, or wait ten years for the wine to age. It has only been in the last few years that producers have been disclosing that a Valpolicella has undergone ripasso. These Baby Amarones are sultry with tannins, explosive with fruit and with notes of a dried bounty from a summer garden. They can be rich with berries, tar, licorice, spice, and chocolate. Their acidity and finish are savory.
Of course there is a chasm of different between Amarone and Valpolicella that has a touch ripasso, but the enrichments the Amarone solids add to this simple red wine are tremendous. It's exceptional juice at budget prices.
Mary Alexandra Mirabile
