The Mountain Nebbiolo

BEST OF Valtellina

23 January, 2018

of Marcus Hofschuster in Tasting

It is astonishing how many qualitatively important wine regions exist in Italy, yet hardly any wine lovers outside the country have ever heard of them. What is almost even more surprising is that they continue to develop despite this lack of attention.

When we last tasted the wines of the Lombardy Alpine province of Sondrio, which are produced there a little above Lake Como on the border to Switzerland and South Tyrol, on this scale a good 10 years ago, some of today's producers did not even exist. The qualities also seem much more stable than back then - and that with a growing variety of styles. The extremes are hardly anywhere as pronounced as here: on the one hand, ultra-traditional, with long ageing in large old barrels and sometimes a very late market launch; on the other, extracted, dark and wood-accentuated (sometimes even beyond recognition). The majority of wines, however, are somewhere in between, with most of them tasting much more precise and also fresher today than in the past.

The wines of Valtellina must consist of at least 90% Nebbiolo, which is called Chiavennasca here and, due to the exposed location - the wines come from terraces, some of them extremely steep, at up to 700 metres above sea level - is usually much lighter and brighter than in the incomparably more famous regions of origin in Piedmont. Nevertheless, the best examples achieve an aromatic complexity and depth that is hardly inferior to that of a Barbaresco or Barolo, only without the force. This makes them great, extremely versatile food companions, but also wonderfully drinkable, sociable and yet sophisticated wines, which above all want to be drunk and not worshipped.

An exception are the Sforzato, dry straw wines made from dried grapes and with correspondingly high alcohol, reminiscent of Amarone. The best producers manage to strike a balance between power and finesse, but there are also some wines whose alcoholic, one-dimensional, jammy fruit leaves one rather perplexed.

We tasted around 100 wines for this BEST OF, the best of which we present to you here and in a handy PDF. Links to all tasting results can be found by clicking on the respective headings.