Appassimento, is anything new?

I recently read an article on next year trends according to Majestic, the wine retailer, and whilst six out of seven were 2019 trends expected to consolidate, the seventh was appassimento, which according to them, is the next big wine trend with the style taking drinkers away from Malbech.

Appassimento, dried in Italian, is a style of wine obtained by drying the grapes for any period after the harvesting to concentrate the sugar and the flavour compounds, sugar that once fermented becomes alcohol, hence appassimento wines tend to have higher alcohol content, with the unfermented sugar called “residual sugar”. All wines have some residual sugar - more or less depending on the style of wine sweet or dry - but in the case of appassimento wines, this residual sugar tend to be higher due to the fact that if the wine maker was to convert all sugar, the alcohol content of the wine will be too high and therefore impossible to drink and sell resulting in darker and full bodied wines with notes of dried fruit.

I have seen more and more producers making appassimento wines, it is already a trend, however, I am not a big fan of this style wines for two main reasons. First, I have tasted hundreds of them, and the vast majority were not good due to their, unbalanced residual sugar. Almost the totality of appassimento wines I tasted were overly sweet, syrupy, lacking freshness, liquid marmalades, wines lacking the acidity and structure that an appassimento wine requires to be drinkable, and a tired nose.

Secondly, appassimento is nothing new, wine makers producing appassimento wines follow the wine making process used for the Amarone della Valpolicella and the lesser known Sforzato della Valtellina only to mention a couple, where several grapes in the first and Nebbiolo in the second, are left to dry after the harvesting to increase their sugar content.

If appassimento has a purpose for the Amarone della Valpolicella or the Sforzato della Valtellina, it allows the grapes to reach the sugar content needed to produce them, in all others, it rarely has any. The same wine making process is also followed when making passiti, also known as dessert or meditation wines, where not all sugar is fermented and the higher residual sugar have a purpose. Properly made appassimento wines, need to have higher acidity and a great structure, without, they are just undrinkable and difficult to pair with food. Appassimento wines also often require ageing, they are labour intensive and therefore costly, and lastly, not all grapes can be “appassite”, dried, there are grapes that already have, when ripe, a high sugar content, let alone drying them.

Several years ago, there was a trend of oaked chardonnay, trend that pushed the oak flavours so far that suddenly wine drinkers were, and still are, put off by simply mentioning the name Chardonnay, blaming the grape instead of the wineries for poorly made wines. At the time, I wrote that oak was being used to cover poorly made wines, wines made with poor quality grapes. I believe that the same is happening now for appassimento style wines, the appassimento method is, as per the oak, being used to hide poor quality grapes: grapes that haven't reached their natural ripeness and need a kick to be transformed into wine.

More and more poor appassimento wines are being made to the point that wine drinkers will eventually be put off by it and despite appassimento wines at the moment seems to be mainly an Italian problem, everyone is trying to jump on the wagon, I guess the Prosecco’s story did not teach wine makers any lesson, with more and more wine making country eventually joining in. Appassimento wines, not being an appellation or a protected name, can be produced all over the world regardless of the grape, they only require the wineries to leave the grapes drying after the harvesting.

A good appassimento wine is an alternative not only to a good Malbech but lots of other wines, however, the wine making process is totally different and so are the wines. A good appassimento wine is more complex, bigger, suited for richer food, and at Italyabroad.com we stock a great one. Our appassimento wine is Revisus, a fantastic wine for all lovers of the style, made by Roberto Scubla, a winemaker we have been working from the beginning of our adventure. Revisus is a properly made appassimento wine with the structure and acidity that a similar wine requires, a wine you will love the same way we do, guaranteed.

This post was written end of 2019, since then plenty of “appassimento” wines came and went, I would say it is not a trend anymore and possibly it has never been, but it is a wine that still sells. Fast forward to March 2023, and this morning I read of a white “appassimento” from Apulia. This is the first time I come across one and I can’t imagine how it will taste and the advert did not specified the grape the wine was made from. If I get around and taste one I will update this post or if you do, please let us know what you think.