ARPEPE
Sassella Riserva Rocce Rosse 2016
Lombardia, Italy
From a unique terroir, even by this dramatic valley’s standards. From a single plot of fifty year old vines planted over red granite near the top of the Sassella cru at nearly 500 metres above sea level. The wine sees a maceration of forty days in tini and rests in huge old chestnut casks for four years before bottling. It is complex and intense, with a wild, sanguine note from the iron in the soils and a pronounced minerality. A wine with an uncanny sense of place.
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.