Valpolicella, Ripasso and Amarone

All four wines start from the same blend — 45–95% Corvina and/or Corvinone, 5–30% Rondinella, up to 25% other permitted reds. What separates them is what happens to the grapes: nothing at all, a second fermentation on Amarone skins, or three to four months of drying.

The flagship was an accident. The name Amarone is credited to Adelino Lucchese, cellarman at the Negrar co-operative, who around 1936 tasted a Recioto that had fermented all the way dry and called it not an amaro but an Amarone. The first bottles sold under the name appeared in 1953, and yet Veneto waited until a ministerial decree of 24 March 2010 to make Amarone and Recioto DOCG — the same decree that finally gave Ripasso a denomination of its own. Recent paperwork, for wines this famous.

One blend, four wines

Amarone also has a Riserva, aged four years from 1 November of the harvest year. Classico on any of these labels means the five original valleys — Fumane, Marano, Negrar, San Pietro in Cariano and Sant’Ambrogio.

What drying does to a grape

Appassimento is the whole story. Whole bunches go into a fruttaio, an airy loft above the cellar, for 100 to 120 days, shedding somewhere between a third and a half of their weight depending on the variety — thick-skinned Corvina loses more than Rondinella. Water leaves; sugar, acid, colour and tannin concentrate, which is how the finished wine reaches the 14% minimum without which it cannot be called Amarone at all.

The rule almost nobody quotes is the cap. A grower may dry no more than 65% of the maximum permitted crop, itself limited to 12 tonnes a hectare; the rest has to go into Valpolicella or Ripasso. Then the law takes a second bite: 100kg of grapes may yield at most 40 litres of Amarone. That arithmetic, rather than prestige, is where most of the price comes from — see winemaking terms.

Ripasso: the technique that became a denomination

Ripasso means re-passed. Finished Valpolicella is pumped back over the drained skins left after Amarone or Recioto is racked off, and a short second fermentation adds colour, body and a degree or two of warmth. Called “baby Amarone” far too often, it is its own thing: sour cherry with a raisiny undertow.

Until 2010 there was no Ripasso denomination at all: the trick lived inside Valpolicella Superiore, unpoliced, and anyone could buy in a lorryload of somebody else’s skins. The DOC brought rules with it. The pomace must come from the same producer’s own Amarone or Recioto, which ended that trade, and the finished wine must reach 12.5% against the 11% asked of plain Valpolicella.

Which bottle for which night

Straight Valpolicella, lightly chilled to about 14°C (57°F), is one of the best-value food reds in Italy and the right answer to pizza, tomato sauce and cured meats. Ripasso is the roast-chicken and mushroom-risotto bottle. Amarone wants braised beef or oxtail. Recioto belongs at the end, with chocolate.

What to avoid: the cheapest Ripasso on the shelf. It borrows Amarone’s premium and delivers least of its concentration; at that price a good plain Valpolicella from a named grower wins by a distance. Avoid pouring Amarone with anything delicate, too — at 16% it flattens fish, chicken and most vegetables outright.

Amarone is drier on paper than in the glass

Amarone is sold as a dry red, and by its own rulebook it is. But the disciplinare allows up to 12 g/l of residual sugar — past the EU’s own ceiling for the word dry, which stops at 9 g/l and only stretches that far when the acidity is high enough to carry it. Add the 15.5–16% alcohol most commercial Amarone actually runs to, and you have the reason a wine everyone calls dry so often tastes faintly sweet, with a port-like weight behind the dried-fig and cocoa fruit.

Not a fault, not deception — a legal allowance most drinkers have never heard of. If you have decided you dislike Amarone, that sweetness is probably why. Our sweetness chart puts the numbers in context and wine alcohol content explains what 16% does to a glass.