Tenuta Novare, Valpolicella Ripasso

My son, who is 14, is a music fanatic with wide-ranging tastes. He recently took a deep dive into the discography of The Clash, and listening to “London Calling” with him was like hearing it for the first time. True classics endure, never losing their capacity to surprise you—which is also how I felt about today’s Valpolicella Ripasso from the historic Tenuta Novare.Ripasso is a formative style of wine for aspiring Italian wine geeks, a signature product of the Valpolicella hills outside Verona, but in our never-ending quest for the new, many of us have left Ripasso (and its big brother, Amarone) behind. So, it was a genuine treat to encounter this perfectly realized 2016: It captures the spirit and letter of Ripasso perfectly and delivers loads of pleasure in the process. It’s the first Ripasso I’ve had in I don’t know how long, and its spot-on performance felt new and exciting, like hearing “London Calling” again after a long hiatus. For all the Italian wine fans out there, this one