Ripasso: Turbocharged Valpolicella!

There’s a lot to like about Valpolicella, the light, tasty red from the pretty hill country north of Verona. But no one ever accused it of being a big red wine.

While there’s nothing wrong with light, appealing table wines, there’s always a demand for something a little more attention-getting; and that’s likely the reason why Valpolicella’s wine makers have created hefty alternatives like the burly Amarone, the sweet and strong Recioto, and today’s featured wine style, Ripasso.

All three of these wines essentially turbocharge the basic Valpolicella by coaxing additional color, complexity, and depth of flavor from the region’s traditional grape mix: Corvina Veronese, which dominates the blend, along with Rondinella and Corvinone.

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Briefly told, here’s how it’s done: To make Amarone, the wine maker spreads the grapes out in large, flat trays and – with the help of large electric-powered fans in modern times – dries them into raisins, deeply concentrating the juices, before pressing those little flavor bombs into a deep, powerful red wine. The rarer Recioto is similar, but it’s vinified as a sweet wine. This process is called passito.

Not only is the passito method time-consuming, but by concentrating the wine, it reduces the amount that can be produced. The result is not just a delicious wine but one that commands an elevated price.

And when they’re finished, those pressed and fermented raisins aren’t done yet. The thrifty producers will scoop those grape squeezings into vessels of fresh Valpolicella for a second fermentation, literally “re-passing” the wine over grapes for a second round. This ripasso process yields a wine with deeper flavor, more complexity, and cellaring potential than basic Valpolicella.

Grapes for Tommasi’s Ripasso are grown in the family’s Conca d’Oro, De Buris, and the pictured La Groletta vineyards.

Today’s featured wine, Tommasi 2020 Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso, is an excellent example of the style. Re-fermented for 12 days on the warm dried grape skins after Tommasi’s Amarone was pressed, it then goes on to spend 18 months in huge Slavonian oak barrels that add only subtle oak character as the wine matures.

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