Valpolicella Ripasso 2014 from Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range

This wine is from an area in Italy that I love, Veneto. It is where one of my favourite white wines, ‘Lugana‘ is from. Valpolicella Ripasso 2014, Taste the Difference, is a real pleasure on its own or with food. Ripasso is a relatively new treatment for Valpolicella wine. The wine is steeped in the fermented Amorone grape skins and seeds, then left for an extended period. This gives the wine more flavour and fullness than Valpolicella. Ripasso is more expensive than Valpolicella but I think it is worth the extra few pounds. Storage and time cost money!

With a beautiful ruby glow in the glass and smelling like a red fruit garden, looking at it is enough to make your mouth water with anticipation.  On the palate it delivers a perfect punch of red cherries, a little sour but good and interesting with a hint of vanilla which comes through much more strongly on the length. It is a dry wine, full of gorgeous, uncomplicated flavours.

This wine obviously matches perfectly with a simple, Italian style, fresh tomato sauce (very ripe, fresh tomatoes, garlic and olive oil) as this is the basic cuisine of where the wine is from. It also works well with vegetable lasagne, a light ragu sauce with more tomatoes than meat, meat lasagne with less Al forno sauce than tomato sauce and a tomato based salad without cucumber. It matches brilliantly with feta cheese too. It does not match well with raw onion, salad dressing with lemon in it nor does it match with baked potato wedges. Today, I enjoyed this wine with pasta served with a fresh tomato sauce and a fresh tomato, feta cheese and walnut salad.

Don’t forget that this wine is fabulous without food too!

£11 at Sainsbury’s but on offer at the moment and is £10.

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