Amarone vs Ripasso
Amarone is the occasion; Ripasso is Tuesday. Two great reds off the same hills north of Verona, made from the same grapes — here's how they differ, how each tastes, and which one to open tonight.
They're cousins, not rivals. Amarone and Ripasso come off the same hills north of Verona, from the same three grapes — Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella — and both owe their character to appassimento, the Veneto habit of drying grapes before they ever see a press. What separates them is degree and intent. Amarone is made entirely from dried grapes: powerful, dry, high in alcohol, the flagship. Ripasso is an everyday Valpolicella given a second life over Amarone's leftover skins. One is the occasion. The other answers "what shall we open tonight?" This is part of our Wine Comparisons series for the Italy hub.
Here's the honest version, from someone who has stood in more than one Valpolicella drying loft in autumn.
Amarone for the fireside and the feast; Ripasso for Tuesday. New to the region? Start with Ripasso and graduate to Amarone — that's the order the wine itself was invented in.
If you want more than that, read on, because the gap is real and worth understanding before you spend on the big bottle.
Amarone: the appassimento monster
This is what happens when a region decides to dry its best grapes rather than press them fresh. After harvest, the bunches go up on racks or into a ventilated loft — the fruttaio — and shrivel through the back half of the year, losing water and concentrating everything else. By the time they're crushed in the depths of winter, they're raisins in all but name. Ferment that bone dry and you get a red of remarkable density: dried fig, black cherry in syrup, bitter chocolate, a warming lift of alcohol that sits in the mid-teens. The name tells you the trick — amaro means bitter, the dry counterpoint to sweet Recioto, the region's older dessert wine made the same way.
Amarone demands occasion. It's the bottle for when the braised beef has been in the oven since morning, or for after dinner with a wedge of aged Monte Veronese and no other agenda. It rewards patience in the cellar too — the serious examples age for years, the Riserva bottlings longer still. Names to know when you choose: Bertani, whose long-aged Amarone is a benchmark; Quintarelli and Dal Forno Romano, the two cult houses whose bottles get hunted worldwide; and the reliable, visitable estates of Masi, Allegrini, Tommasi, Speri and Tedeschi. The finest fruit comes from the Classico heartland — the western valleys around Fumane, Marano, Negrar and Sant'Ambrogio — where the hillsides catch the airflow that makes drying possible.
Ripasso: the clever everyday red
Ripasso is one of winemaking's great thrifty ideas. Take a young, fresh Valpolicella — bright red cherry, easy charm — and re-ferment it over the skins left behind once the Amarone and Recioto are pressed off. Those spent skins still hold sugar, colour and tannin, and the wine "re-passes" over them, drinking the difference: more body, deeper colour, a touch more alcohol, a whisper of Amarone's dried-fruit richness without the full weight. Ripasso means exactly that — re-passed. People call it "baby Amarone," which undersells it. It's really its own thing, a bridge wine that keeps Valpolicella's freshness while borrowing the flagship's warmth.
Masi popularised the style with its Campofiorin bottling in the 1960s — a wine that predates the modern Ripasso category and, in a nice twist of Veneto commerce, gave Masi a claim on the "Ripasso" name itself, which is why some houses use the method but label it differently. Today it's a denomination in its own right, and nearly every serious Valpolicella producer makes one: Zenato, Tommasi, Musella, Guerrieri Rizzardi and the Classico estates all field excellent versions. This is the bottle for a plate of risotto all'Amarone, a rich ragù, a Wednesday-night roast chicken. It's what locals pour without ceremony, and once you've had a good one you'll wonder why it isn't in every wine shop back home.
Head to head
| Amarone | Ripasso | |
|---|---|---|
| How it's made | 100% dried grapes (full appassimento) | Young Valpolicella re-fermented over Amarone/Recioto skins |
| Weight | Big, dense, concentrated | Medium-full, fresher, softer |
| Alcohol | High — mid-teens | Fuller than basic Valpolicella, well below Amarone |
| When to drink | Occasions, fireside, after dark | Everyday, midweek, with dinner |
| Food | Braised meat, game, aged cheese, or solo | Risotto, pasta, roast poultry, pizza |
| Ageing | Years; Riserva longer | Drink young to medium-term |
| Spend | The splurge | The value play |
Which one is yours
- New to Valpolicella: Ripasso, every time. It teaches you the region's flavour signature — dried cherry, warmth, a savoury edge — at friendlier stakes, and then Amarone makes sense as the step up.
- Special occasion: Amarone, no contest. Built for the long lunch and the big roast, and the bottle worth carrying home from a cellar visit.
- Everyday table: Ripasso. More versatile with food, and far easier to open on a random weeknight without it feeling like an event.
- Collector: Amarone — and chase Bertani, Quintarelli or Dal Forno if you can find them. They age gracefully for a decade or more.
The honest answer: you want both
The smartest way to learn these wines is to taste them side by side at source, and Valpolicella makes that easy. The Classico valleys sit barely half an hour north of Verona — an effortless morning's drive, or a leg of the classic Venice-to-Valpolicella escape — and most estates will happily pour their Ripasso and Amarone in sequence so you feel the family resemblance and the gulf between them in one sitting. Do that once, in a drying loft heady with the smell of resting grapes, and the whole thing clicks: Ripasso is how Valpolicella lives day to day, and Amarone is how it dresses for the occasion. Buy a case of the first and a few treasured bottles of the second, and you've understood the place.
Common questions
Amarone is made entirely from grapes dried for months before they're pressed — the appassimento method — which turns them into a big, dry, high-alcohol red, the region's flagship. Ripasso is a normal Valpolicella 're-passed' over the spent skins left from Amarone, picking up extra body, warmth and colour. Think of Amarone as the concert and Ripasso as the very good rehearsal: same musicians, lower stakes, far more often.
No, and the framing sells it short. Ripasso starts as a fresh Valpolicella and borrows richness from Amarone's spent skins, so it lands halfway between a bright cherry-driven everyday red and the full appassimento monster. This is the wine locals actually drink midweek — softer, more drinkable, and far more forgiving with food than Amarone, which asks for occasion and attention.
Amarone, comfortably. Every grape is dried before it ferments, so Amarone routinely climbs into the mid-teens in alcohol and carries dense, dried-fig concentration. Ripasso is fuller than a standard Valpolicella but noticeably lighter and fresher than Amarone — the one you can have a second glass of without needing a nap by the fire.
Pour Amarone with the big, slow things: braised beef, game, aged Monte Veronese — or with nothing at all, as a meditation wine after dark. Ripasso is the weeknight hero, made for risotto (the local risotto all'Amarone included), pasta with ragù, roast poultry and pizza. One is a special-occasion red; the other is the house red you wish you had at home.
Glossary
- Appassimento
- The drying of freshly picked grapes on racks or in ventilated lofts for months before pressing, concentrating sugar and flavour. It is the defining technique behind Amarone, Recioto and the wider Valpolicella style family.
- Ripasso
- Literally 're-passing': fermenting a young Valpolicella a second time over the skins left from Amarone or Recioto, so it draws extra alcohol, colour and body from them. Now its own DOC.