THE VERDICT

There were some wines in this line-up of 93 that earned high individual scores from our judges, suggesting that there is plenty of potential for Veneto’s ripasso and ripasso-style red wines. However, Michael Garner kicked off the discussion afterwards by asking: ‘What is the real identity that ripasso has? There is a lot of variation, and a lot of confusion as to what constitutes a classic ripasso.’

Andrew Jefford added: ‘It’s rather strange to have a whole wine category which is based on production methods and not any kind of zoning of origin, and where estates are not specifying the production method in exact terms on the wine labels. That is rather anomalous.’

Garner was also disappointed that it wasn’t possible to include the (non-ripasso) Valpolicella Superiore category in this one-day tasting, since ‘a huge proportion of those wines are also made using some percentage of dried grapes’.

Despite the consternation, our judges did find some examples which impressed: ‘Ripasso Classico was certainly the most exciting category,’ said Jefford. ‘I scored 15 of these wines at