Valpolicella has had a long tradition of supplying the world with fairly inexpensive, easy-drinking light red wines. But how do you turn a simple wine into a competitor to its bolder neighbours? By making good use of recycling of course!
Like several other popular regions in Italy, Valpolicella went through an explosion of demand in the late 20th century. And when demand grows, supply follows. And when wine is concerned, this means a wide expansion of the planting area. Of course, the quality of the wine suffered, so this led to the subsequent creation of the Valpolicella Classica zone to separate the original from the worse copies (pro-tip: when buying Italian wine, you can’t go wrong with the Classico appellations).
Recioto: Perfume
The story of Valpolicella would be similar to that of Chianti, Soave and others if it stopped there. But what is different here is that at about the same time as the vineyard areas were being changed, a flurry of old and new winemaking techniques dramatically expanded the style of wines produced from those same vineyards.
Wines from Valpolicella are based on Corvina, a grape native to the area, but have to be blended, usually with Corvinone and Rondinella. Molinara used to be mandatory before 2003 but no longer, although it is still considered essential by traditionalists producers. Corvina is pretty light in colour and tannins, but it has a thick skin which makes it ideally suited for appassimento.
Appassimento is a winemaking technique that has been used forever in Italy -and elsewhere- to produce sweet wines, called Recioto della Valpolicella in the area. The idea is to let grapes dry -on straw mats or wooden crates- to concentrate the sugar in the berries, which turn into raisins. Once they are all shrivelled up, the raisins are fermented. As a big bonus for Corvina, this deepens the colour and increases the tannins level. Once the desired balance of alcohol and sweetness is reached, the fermentation is stopped -usually by chilling- and it gives a sweet, intensely perfumed red wine.
"Tommasi - Arele and Plastic Boxes" by Tommasi Family Estates is licensed under CC BY 2.0Amarone: Oops, I did it again!
One day in the early 1900s, a few winemakers must have fallen asleep or something. They forgot to stop the fermentation mid-way through. The result: a dry, very high in alcohol and extract version of Recioto della Valpolicella. It took about 50 years until that style was bottled and sold commercially under the label Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone (Amaro means bitter), and almost as much time -the 1990s- for producers to be allowed to drop Recioto from the name for what is now called Amarone della Valpolicella.
Personally, I don’t get it.
And by that I mean I don’t understand the appeal. Sure, it’s got tons of alcohol (usually above 15%), tons of body (the glycerol concentration makes it more viscous), tons of tannins, tons of colour. It is a Valpolicella, but turned up to 11. What is it good for? My guess is for people who like the most intense experiences. But I like balance.
Ripasso: Baby one more time
So where does this leave Valpolicella ? Outside of the sweet recioto, if you want a dry wine do you only have the choice between the light and fruity Valpolicella and the heavy, intense Amarone?
Of course not.
As I mentioned before, the fermentation for Amarone is quite slow given the amount of sugar. So some clever winemaker poured freshly fermented, light Valpolicella over the leftover vinacce -the skins and lees- of Amarone. This triggers a second, shorter re-fermentation of the wine.
Ripasso (meaning literally re-passed or reused) was born. And even though the technique had been used for a while, the well-known producer Masi is widely credited for making it commercially successful.
Ripasso della Valpolicella shares the youthful fruitiness of basic Valpolicella, but with more structure, fuller body, slightly higher alcohol and more tannins. Far from Amarone for sure, but definitely bolder. And all of this by just recycling the grapes!
There are a lot of other things producers can do, like blending up to 15% of Amarone in the final wine, or adding dried grapes to the initial Valpolicella fermentation, so each producer will come out with a slightly different wine. That said, if you are looking for a wine that has the freshness of the fruit you would find in a Valpolicella but more presence in your glass, get yourself a bottle of Ripasso della Valpolicella. You won’t regret it.
If you live in Canada, you can use Winereco to find a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso near you:
Happy drinking !