Ripasso Wine: What It Is and Why They Call It Baby Amarone

Valpolicella Ripasso is a dry red made by re-fermenting a finished Valpolicella on the leftover skins from Amarone production. Those skins still contain sugar, colour and aroma, so the second fermentation adds body, alcohol and depth — producing a wine that sits deliberately between everyday Valpolicella and full-blown Amarone. It has been a DOC in its own right since 2010.

How the ripasso method works

Ripasso means “re-passed” in Italian, and the name describes the process exactly.

When Amarone finishes fermenting, the pomace — the spent skins and seeds — is far from exhausted. It still holds residual sugar, colour, tannin and aromatic compounds. Rather than discard it, producers pump a young, already-fermented Valpolicella onto that pomace and let a second fermentation begin.

The wine gains roughly a degree or more of alcohol, deeper colour, and a layer of dried-fruit character it could never develop on its own. The technique is old and was long practised informally; it was only formalised as a DOC in 2010.

What it tastes like

Ripe cherry and plum, with dried fruit, cocoa and spice underneath. Medium to full-bodied, 13 to 14.5 percent alcohol, and a warm but not overwhelming finish.

The useful way to think about it: Ripasso keeps the freshness and drinkability of Valpolicella Classico while borrowing perhaps half of Amarone’s richness. That is precisely why it exists.

Ripasso versus Amarone versus Classico

	Valpolicella Classico	Ripasso	Amarone
Grapes	fresh	fresh	dried 100–120 days
Extra step	none	re-fermented on Amarone skins	—
Alcohol	11–13%	13–14.5%	15–16%
Price	€8–15	€12–25	€25–300+
Drink	young	2–8 years	10–20+ years

Tasting the three in sequence from the same producer is the single most instructive half hour available in Valpolicella — same vineyards, same hands, three different decisions.

Is Ripasso sweet or dry?

Dry. The confusion is understandable — Ripasso smells of raisins, dried cherry and fig, and the nose reads sweeter than the palate delivers. But the sugars picked up from the Amarone skins are fermented out, leaving a dry wine with a ripe, generous texture. If you want the genuinely sweet member of this family, that is Recioto, Amarone’s dessert-wine ancestor.

How much does Ripasso cost — and when is it worth it

Expect €12–25 a bottle at the cellar door, against €25–300+ for Amarone from the same hands. That gap is the entire commercial logic of the wine: a recognisable share of Amarone’s character at a fraction of the production cost and waiting time.

The worthwhile test is vertical, not horizontal: a producer’s Ripasso next to their Classico tells you what the re-passing adds; next to their Amarone it tells you what the dried grapes add. Price-wise, the sweet spot is the €15–20 band from family estates — below that the Amarone character tends to be cosmetic, above it you are often better off saving for the real thing.

What to eat with it

Ripasso is the most food-flexible wine in the appellation, and the one Veronese families actually open on a weeknight. It handles roast and braised meats, mushroom and truffle dishes, hard cheeses, and the local pastissada de caval.

Amarone can overwhelm a meal; Ripasso rarely does. If you are buying one Valpolicella wine to drink rather than to cellar, this is usually the right one.

Where to taste it

Almost every producer in the region makes one, and it is always poured as the middle step of a proper tasting flight. Our Taste of Valpolicella tour walks through the full progression with a sommelier, and the Valpolicella wine tours guide covers planning a visit around it.

Three cellars we visit where the Ripasso earns its place in the flight rather than filling it: Tommasi, whose Ripasso is the textbook expression of the style; Bussola, where it leans riper and darker; and Masi, which trademarked its own take on the technique decades ago. Taste the same style three ways and the method stops being an abstraction. For how Ripasso fits into the wider picture — Soave, Bardolino, Lugana and the rest — see our guide to the wines of Verona.