Ar.Pe.Pe

3/21/11 -

(Grumello. This image doesn't really show how steep this vineyard is.)

The Valtellina is a spectacularly beautiful mountain valley in the foothills of the Alps – just south of the Italian/Swiss border. It’s a traditional place for Nebbiolo grapes; the local wines aren’t generally as structured and powerful as Barolo or Barbaresco, but the few best examples can offer fabulous drinking; old, or even very old Valtellina wines can be splendid. Our survey of a large number of Valtellina wines made it clear that the majority of winemakers there have gone to modern-style winemaking using barriques (small oak barrels); to our taste, for Nebbiolo this results in wines that are overwhelmed by oak, or at best wines that lack typicity and finesse. Rumor has reached us that this trend is beginning to ease; in our not-so-humble-opinion this comes as a relief because a lot of evidently fine fruit is basically ruined with excessive winemaking. The Valtellina is an incredibly demanding place to grow grapes – everything must be done by hand, and more than one producer has told us that every hour of labor in Barolo or Barbaresco requires 6 hours in Valtellina – it seems a shame to blow all that effort on oaky wine.

Among a very small and elite group, Alberto Marsetti is making very good old-style Valtellina; our stock has run-out until later this year. Happily we have finally received our first shipment from our favorite Valtellina producer, the great Ar.Pe.Pe. This is old-style, old-school wine – long fermentations, aged in enormous old casks - the results are very fine, elegant and focused marriage of Nebbiolo and the high-altitude stony Valtellina terroirs.

We went to a very nice and interesting dinner for Ar.Pe.Pe last week. If a bomb had gone off, New York (and some other places) would now be sommelier-less; the room was packed with them, and it turns out that the wines are now on the list at a large number of our top restaurants, and more to come soon – a pleasant confirmation of our opinion of Ar.Pe.Pe.

The more I taste the wines the more I love them. The Rosso is pure mountain Nebbiolo, fine and penetrating, very pretty but with a serious foundation. Grumello is the name of one of the best vineyards in the Valtellina; slightly deeper soils (all of about 6 feet of soil!) give body and texture; the wine is refined, complex, beautiful. With some age –1999, for example – and a long time in the decanter – it is a profound pleasure. JW