The main flight of Valpolicella reds which almost all wineries produce are all made from the same source material, as I touched on earlier. They range from the simple Valpolicella to the trendy Ripasso and to the pinnacle wines of Recioto and Amarone.
What you get when you take your Corvina and other assorted grapes, ferment them for a couple of days and put them in steel tanks for a couple of months is the simple but delicious Valpolicella; the basic wine we usually just call Classico (if it is from the Classico region). Ruby to dark ruby red in color, its aromas are generally flowery and fragrant with dominating cherry notes, light to medium body, and sometimes a slightly bitter, almondy finish. It practically never sees any oak, and only some producers give it a longer refinement period in the tanks, bottling almost a year after harvest, sometimes designated superiore for heigher must weight and alcohol content. These efforts are darker and ideally more complex, but all Valpolicellas are pleasant, inexpensive table wines.
(grapes being dried on wood crates)One defining peculiarity of the Valpolicella is the ancient and still very alive practice of drying the grapes. Part of the harvest is used for making the basic Valpolicella, while selected vineyards and grapes are placed in well-aerated drying houses or attics. Under constant streams of air and supervision to prevent and spot any mould, the grapes dry for 90 to 120 days, losing 30% to 50% of their weight in evaporating water. It is from these shrivelled half-raisins that the best wines are made.
After drying, the grape juice is highly concentrated, and long, slow fermentations yield a dark, rich wine called Amarone. High in alcohol content (and sometimes in residual sugar), it has to undergo barrel aging before bottling. The result is a wine with deep, dark aromas: the characteristic black cherries; aromas associated with the dried grapes like raisins, nuts or rum; dark chocolate, and to some extent oak notes. Good Amarone is as expensive as it is ageworthy; the pinnacle of Valpolicella winemaking.
After drying, the grape juice is highly concentrated, and long, slow fermentations yield a dark, rich wine called Amarone. High in alcohol content (and sometimes in residual sugar), it has to undergo barrel aging before bottling. The result is a wine with deep, dark aromas: the characteristic black cherries; aromas associated with the dried grapes like raisins, nuts or rum; dark chocolate, and to some extent oak notes. Good Amarone is as expensive as it is ageworthy; the pinnacle of Valpolicella winemaking.
(still looking good after about eight weeks of drying)If the fermentation is stopped before all the sugar is converted into alcohol, the result is a moderately heavy wine with considerable residual sugar (usually more than 100g/l) - the Recioto. Incidentally, this is believed to be the older of the two wines (Amarone and Recioto), dating back to antiquity, whereas Amarone was only (re-)discovered in the 20th century. A good Recioto offers the complexity of an Amarone, with cherries, chocolates and spices while possessing a delicious sweetness; ideally less of it than some other famous dessert wines. In my opinion, balance, not opulence, is the key to a great Recioto. Not that there's anything wrong with opulence in an Amarone.
You certainly can't blame the people of the Valpolicella for being wasteful - they even found a use for the old lees of Amarone and Recioto after fermentation. I'm talking about Ripasso, which is of course far more than just a leftover wine. After putting the fermented Amarone or Recioto into tanks or barrels for ageing, the used lees can be taken and added to a Valpolicella base wine that has been finished months ago. With the introduction of the lees which still contain sugar and extract, a short second fermentation (about one week) can add more color, alcohol and flavor to the Valpolicella wine, turning it into a Ripasso. Originally invented and perfected by Masi in the 20th century, this method has caught on everywhere in the region. Ranging both in character and in price between the basic wine and Amarone, a good Ripasso can deliver the complexity of an Amarone with its rum-cherry-raisin and chocolate bouquet without the weight of its big brother.
"Experiments", as many winemakers will freely call them, also usually fall in this category of wine: some producers make a Ripasso with Cabernet in it, others add a little Sangiovese and let the grapes dry for a short time; one excellent such experiment we encountered is essentially an Amarone except that it contains a sizeable amount of Cabernet and thus can't legally be called that.
The other area where Valpolicella producers like to experiment is white passito dessert wines. These are the white counterparts to Recioto, commonly from Garganega and Trebbiano, and dried for a similar amount of time. Golden in color, with honey, nut and citrus aromas, these wines can be a delightfully inexpensive alternative not only to Recioto but to white (botrytisized) dessert wines and are marvellous with cheese.
But all that is just theory - we'll take a closer look at some examples in the form of four Valpolicella producers and their offers in the next couple of posts.
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