Ripasso di Valpolicella: The Method Between Valpolicella and Amarone

The Valpolicella Ripasso DOC did not exist until 2010. For most of the twentieth century, this wine had no formal legal identity: a style produced by one of Italy’s most technically specific post-fermentation methods, sold under whatever designation a producer could justify, sometimes with the word “Ripasso” on the label and often without it. The technique predates the DOC by at least a century. The legal framework arrived, as it so often does in Italian wine, well after the wine had become commercially indispensable.

Today Ripasso is one of the Veneto’s most exported styles. By 2023, the zone was producing approximately 23 million bottles annually, a figure that exceeds Amarone output by a substantial margin. The wine that critics once described as “a shortcut” or, at its harshest, “poor man’s Amarone” is now the commercial spine of the Valpolicella hierarchy. Whether that reflects a genuine reassessment of the style or the simple logic of the market is a question worth sitting with before opening a bottle.

The Method

The logic of Ripasso is elegant in its economy. After Amarone della Valpolicella completes its long fermentation, the grape skins, the vinacce, are pressed and removed from the vessel. They still contain residual sugar, active yeast, and the polyphenol-rich compounds that give Amarone its density and structure. Rather than discard them, the producer introduces a young Valpolicella base wine to the marc, triggering a second fermentation. It is this second passing through the skins, this ripasso, that gives the wine its name.

Under the DOC disciplinare, the refermentation must last at least five days. During that period, the base wine extracts from the marc: color, as additional anthocyanins deepen the ruby toward garnet; tannin, from renewed skin contact; and flavor compounds associated with dried fruit, spice, and the particular volatile profile of partially desiccated grape solids. It also picks up additional alcohol, because the dried skins still carry residual sugars that continue fermenting into the base wine.

What it costs is equally measurable. The refermentation reduces some of the primary fresh fruit character that makes a good Valpolicella Classico light on its feet and agile at the table. It commits the wine to a richer, denser profile from which there is no return. Whether that constitutes a cost or a feature depends entirely on what you wanted when you opened the bottle.

One constraint that is frequently overlooked: the disciplinare requires that the marc used for refermentation come from the same vendemmia as the base wine, and that it derive from Amarone or Recioto della Valpolicella production within the same zone. You cannot use another estate’s marc. You cannot use marc from a previous vintage. The vertical integration this demands means Ripasso is structurally tied to the Amarone calendar: no Amarone production in a given year means no Ripasso from that estate in the same year.

The Legal Frame

Valpolicella Ripasso DOC covers the same broad geographic area as Valpolicella DOC, divided into the wide “Valpolicella” zone and the more prestigious “Classico” designation, restricted to the historic heartland: the five comuni of San Pietro in Cariano, Fumane, Marano di Valpolicella, Negrar, and Sant’Ambrogio di Valpolicella. A wine labeled “Valpolicella Ripasso Classico” is, to be precise, sourced from this smaller, more strictly defined territory.

The DOC tier requires a minimum 12.5% alcohol and one year of aging from harvest. The Superiore tier raises the minimum to 13.0% alcohol and two years of aging, with at least six months in wood. In practice, producers of any ambition are already operating within Superiore parameters even when not displaying that designation on the label; the base tier exists primarily to accommodate larger commercial operations whose margins cannot support the two-year holding cost.

The history of the word itself is worth noting. Before 2010, producers had no unified designation under which to market the style. Some sold it as “Valpolicella Superiore,” which was technically accurate but communicated nothing about the refermentation method. Others used the word “Ripasso” as a descriptor on back labels or marketing materials. Masi Agricola, whose Campofiorin, first produced in 1964, did more than any single wine to establish the commercial template for the style, operated for decades under the shadow of contested rights to the term. The 2010 DOC resolved, at least formally, what had been an untidy commercial situation.

Three Wines in the Glass

The most instructive way to understand Ripasso is to pour all three wines in the Valpolicella hierarchy side by side: Valpolicella Classico, Ripasso Superiore, and Amarone della Valpolicella, from the same producer and the same vintage year. The color progression alone is instructive: the Classico is translucent ruby, almost Pinot Noir in its transparency; the Ripasso is a denser garnet-ruby; the Amarone is near-opaque, with the deep violet-garnet you would expect from a wine whose grapes have lost 40 to 50 percent of their original weight through controlled desiccation. For a full account of what happens during the drying process, the Appunti guide to appassimento covers the technical detail.

The palate tells a related story. Valpolicella Classico, from a good producer in a good year, has brightness, sour cherry fruit, and a fresh acidity that makes it one of the more versatile food wines in the Italian canon. Amarone, whose fermentation has converted the concentrated sugars of dried Corvina into 15 to 16 percent alcohol, carries glycerine richness and dried-fruit density that demands either contemplation on its own or food of equivalent weight. Ripasso sits between them: more color and tannin than the Classico, less glycerine and alcohol than the Amarone, with a flavor profile that, at its best, leans into dried cherry, morello, cinnamon, tobacco leaf, and a note of dark chocolate on the finish.

The legitimate version of the “neither here nor there” critique is this: Ripasso, in the wrong hands, produces a wine that lacks the aromatic lift of a good Valpolicella and lacks the depth and complexity of a carefully made Amarone. It occupies a middle register without owning it. The counter-argument, which I find more persuasive when applied to the right producers, is that the middle register, occupied well, is exactly what a sommelier building a by-the-glass program actually needs: a wine that pours more interestingly than an entry-level Valpolicella, commands a more defensible glass price, and does not require the ceremony or the food weight that Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG demands.

The Value Argument

The commercial case for Ripasso has never been stronger, which is precisely why it merits scrutiny. The category has grown substantially since 2010, and export volumes to Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States absorb a significant share of the 23-million-bottle annual production figure. That scale introduces a range of quality that is, to be precise, very wide indeed.

At the commercial end of the spectrum, Ripasso is produced in quantities that require minimal connection to the appassimento discipline that governs serious Amarone. The marc, legally sourced from Amarone production within the zone, may come from large-volume operations whose drying lofts are optimized for throughput rather than selection. The resulting wine fulfills the DOC requirements while delivering little of what makes the refermentation method interesting.

At the artisan end, from small estates in the Classica zone whose Amarone is produced from carefully managed vineyard parcels at altitude, the marc available for Ripasso refermentation reflects that same careful selection. Paolo Cottini, working from vineyards across Fumane and the surrounding valleys, with parcels at Ca’ del Gallo and Magine reaching 580 meters above sea level, represents the kind of small-estate philosophy in which the Ripasso style finds its most coherent expression: where the quality of the Amarone marc determines the character of the Ripasso, and where the method extends the estate’s appassimento work rather than providing a commercial shortcut. The approach to Amarone at Cottini is documented in the Appunti profile of Sara Riolfi; it is useful context before opening the estate’s Amarone della Valpolicella 2018, whose spent skins are exactly the sort of marc a serious Ripasso is built on.

Buying Well

The question that buyers actually ask, though rarely in these terms, is whether Ripasso justifies its position in the hierarchy: above Valpolicella Classico in both price and structure, below Amarone in both. The honest answer is that it depends entirely on who made it, and that this is a more demanding ask than it sounds. There are more mediocre Ripassos on the market than mediocre Amarones, precisely because the latter’s extended aging requirements and higher production costs filter out the least committed producers before the wine reaches the shelf.

For a restaurant list, the case is clearest when Ripasso Superiore Classico from an estate-level producer occupies the middle tier of the by-the-glass program. It is heavier than a light red, lighter than a full Amarone, and pairs across a wider range of dishes than either extreme. A sommelier can pour it alongside a mushroom risotto, a duck breast, or a braised short rib and be right each time. That versatility is, arguably, the best argument for the style: not that it approximates Amarone at a lower price, but that it does something the other wines in the hierarchy cannot, which is occupy the useful middle ground with genuine structure and without ceremony.

The value argument holds on one condition: that you are selecting Ripasso from producers whose Amarone you would drink. If the Amarone is not serious work, the Ripasso is not worth the premium over straight Valpolicella Classico. If the Amarone is careful and the marc genuinely expressive, the Ripasso from the same estate is a reasonable, often very good, use of the same raw material. The Valpolicella region guide provides the wider geographic and stylistic context; both pieces together map the complete hierarchy before you commit to a case.

Ripasso is not a shortcut. It is a commitment to the specific intersection of Valpolicella’s base wine, Amarone’s spent skins, and a second fermentation that no amount of blending or technical intervention can properly simulate. Whether the result is worth the investment depends almost entirely on who made the Amarone that produced the marc. Buy accordingly.