ARPEPE
Grumello Rocca de Piro 2017
Lombardy, Italy
The Grumello cru has a little more topsoil above the granite than neighbouring vineyards in Sassella and Inferno and tends to produce wines that are a little less angular, a little softer and fuller. Here, fifty year old vines sit between 350 to 500 metres above sea level and the wine spends four months on skins in tini, before being pressed off to old chestnut botti to rest for a year a half. A generous take on Mountain Nebbiolo that offers great pleasure in its youth.
Nebbiolo
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
The Perego family has been tending vines on these sheer granite terraces in the mountainous Valtellina since 1860. The vines are so far north into the alps they are practically in Switzerland.
They work only with Nebbiolo, or Chiavennasca as it is called in these parts, growing the grapes up to 700 metres above sea level on sheer, south-facing, sunlit vines that dig straight into rock. The resulting fruit is intensely mineral.
Production is very much of the old-school and labour is intense, the hills making it very difficult to reach the fruit at all. Everything in the vineyard is done by hand and in the cantina the family exercises a soft touch with great patience, leaving the wines to rest until they are deemed ready for release.
The transparency of the grape, the singular landscape and the Peregos’ gentle hand in the cantina lend these wines a remarkable sense of place.