If you love red Burgundy, take a day off and try this red from the ‘Italian’ side of the Swiss Alps. As SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch reports, the Nebbiolo-based wines of the Valtellina are right up your alley.
As I’ve said before, I don’t always ‘get it’ when people compare the Nebbiolo-based wines of Barolo and Barbaresco with the Pinot Noirs of Burgundy. While the wine cultures in these regions are indeed very similar—characterized by a focus on vineyard-designated bottlings—the wines themselves, while kindred, are usually quite distinct. Despite its perfumed, Pinot-esque aromatics, Nebbiolo typically skews more darkly fruited, tannic, and savory, even in comparison to more ‘rustic’ Burgundy styles. It’s mostly a question of scale: Barolo and Barbaresco wines are almost always bigger and burlier than their Burgundian contemporaries. For me, the Nebbiolo wines that most closely emulate the floral, cherry-fruited gentility of Burgundy Pinot Noir are those grown on the steep terraces of the Valtellina, along Italy’s northern border with Switzerland. This wine hails from a single vineyard called “Inferno,” one of five officially designated sub-zones of the Valtellina appellation. If Inferno were a French vineyard, it would likely be designated a “Grand Cru,” and rightly so: This 2011 from Nobili has the kind of aristocratic bearing you’d expect from such a special combination of grape and place. Now blessed with a bit of bottle age, it’s blossomed into quite a complex wine, especially for the price. Save the Volnay for another day and put this gem in its place; you will not be disappointed!
I’m going to stop with the Burgundy comparisons now. Physically, the Valtellina has more in common with Cornas or Côte-Rôtie, in the northern Rhône Valley, than it does with the rolling slopes of Burgundy. Centered on the city of Sondrio, in the northern-most reaches of Italy’s Lombardy region, Valtellina is a deeply carved Alpine valley traversed by the Adda River, which follows an almost perfect East-West path; vineyards are planted only on the north bank of the Adda, giving them full-south, all-day sun exposures in a climate that might otherwise be too cool to ripen grapes—especially the late-ripening Nebbiolo. The steep pitches of the hillsides require the vineyards to be terraced, and they’re held in place by a network of hand-laid stone terraces that were originally thought to be the work of ancient Ligurians, who had built similar terraces in the Cinque Terre near the Mediterranean. Look up from the Valtellina valley floor and you might think you’re in Côte-Rôtie, a “roasted slope” with which “Inferno” has lots in common. All vineyard work here, as is plain to see, must be done by hand.
With the snow-capped Swiss Alps looming overhead, the Valtellina is really something to behold—but this is ultimately a tiny wine region, spanning only about 300 hectares of vines along a 30-mile stretch of the Adda. In addition to Inferno, there are four other officially delimited vineyards under the Valtellina DOCG umbrella: Sassella, Valgella, Grumello, and Maroggia. All of these sites have a multiplicity of owners farming and bottling wines from them, and for a wine to be called Valtellina Superiore with a vineyard designation, it must be comprised of at least 90% Nebbiolo (here called Chiavennasca) from said vineyard and be aged a total of 24 months (12 of which must be in wood barrels) before release.
Valtellina vineyards are rooted in a mix of sand, silt, and stone, much of it hauled up from the valley floor to construct the terraces. The stones and larger rocks help with heat retention, as does the altitude and aspect of the vineyards, but this is still “mountain” Nebbiolo, typically harvested in November and every inch a “cool climate” red: lithe, mineral, and fragrant as opposed to jammy and rich. Historically, most Valtellina wine was sold in Switzerland, but, as with some of the Alpine Nebbioli of Northern Piedmont (‘alto Piemonte’ appellations such as Gattinara), the wines have become go-to Barolo/Barbaresco alternatives—not least because they offer a gentler take on Nebbiolo. The typical Valtellina wine usually has less alcohol and considerably less tannin than Barolo/Barbaresco, yet still offers the complex, heady perfume people love in the variety.
The first thing I notice in this 2011 Inferno from Nobili is its nervous energy. It’s a shimmering pale garnet in the glass, moving to a typical Nebbiolo orange at the rim, and its aromatics are highly perfumed and penetrating: red cherry, red currant, strawberry, blood orange rind, wet rose petals, leather, mushroom, pipe tobacco and a hint of black tea all jump from the glass at the slightest provocation (i.e. a quick swirl). The tannins are fine-grained and gentle, as is typical of Valtellina Nebbiolo—it’s the bright acidity that will continue to drive this wine for another decade-plus with ease. Medium-bodied, lithe, and aromatic all the way through the lengthy finish. It’s got the purity and poise of a…nope, I’m not going to say it. It’s a really fine-tuned, pretty red. Period. If you’re opening one now, decant it about an hour before serving in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees. Traditional Valtellina food has a very heavy, mountain feel to it, with Alpine cow’s milk cheeses like Bitto playing a prominent role, and this Inferno is perfectly constructed to cut through fat and refresh, as opposed to weigh you down more. I’m going to once again embed a hint here with Ian Cauble to get me on his next mushroom-foraging run, so I can whip up the attached risotto recipe for multiple bottles of this wine. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop at one, either.
—D.L.
