When you have a wine culture as old as Italy’s, you tend to learn a few tricks of the trade. Considering they’ve been producing wine in that country for around 4,000 years, though, the establishment of the Ripasso process of winemaking—less than 60 years ago—is comparatively recent.

But you need to understand what Amarone is before we can discuss Ripasso. Amarone is traditionally produced with a Valpolicella blend of Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella grapes from the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. Ripe grapes are picked, but then left to dry on racks for weeks to dehydrate, further concentrating their flavour, colour and alcohol, before the winemaking process begins. The end result is a potent (often 15-16% alcohol), full-flavoured, full-bodied red.

But what to do with the leftover lees and skins from that power-packed Amarone? That’s where Ripasso comes in. As the term implies, “Ripasso” means “repassed”—a process whereby an already fermented Valpolicella wine is added to a cask to soak with remnants of the recently fermented Amarone for about two and a half weeks. Blending that lighter Valpolicella wine with the Amarone dregs adds colour, weight and flavour, as well as about 1% more alcohol. The result is what many call a “baby Amarone”—a robust Valpolicella, but with a ‘safer’ level of alcohol—and for less than half the price of an Amarone.

Here’s a great example from Cesari.

Cesari Mara Valpolicella Ripasso — Veneto, Italy ($19.75)
Cesari substitutes a splash of Negrara for Corvinone in its Valpolicella blend. Straight out of the bottle, this wine impresses. Fruit and flavour seem to be shoehorned into it, with notes of tobacco, vanilla and black fruit. It’s a Ripasso, but there’s no sense of the wine having been artificially enhanced, with its full-bodied, velvety contents packed with more jammy dark fruit, medium tannins and light spice on the palate, with a respectable 13.5% alcohol content. This is excellent value for under $20. If you like full-bodied reds but you don’t like this one, well, you’re just weird. 90