Can mountain ageing take Valtellina’s wines to new heights?
‘The project has the potential to open a lot of scientific windows’, says Richard Baudains, who tastes the preliminary results of high-altitude ageing.
Wine has been aged in many unusual places before: under the sea, in caves and in disused mine shafts. But as far as anyone knows, it has never been matured on the top of a mountain.
The potential effects of the low temperatures and the rarified atmosphere at extreme altitudes on the ageing process of wine intrigued oenologist Danilo Drocco, who set out to look for an answer.
Notes on wines from Valtellina aged on a mount top below
Drocco is the director and winemaker at Nino Negri in the mountainous Valtellina valley. Founded in 1897, Nino Negri is the leading producer here, with an annual production of around 700,000 bottles sourced from 35 hectares of estate vineyards, as well as from 200 small-scale growers.
Valtellina lies in the north of Lombardy, at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps and on the border with Switzerland. Its vineyards stretch for around 50km on the south-facing flank of a valley which runs east to west on either side of the provincial capital of Sandrio.
Tiny plots, supported by a staggering 2,500km of dry stone walls, creep up the valley side to almost 800 metres above sea level with gradients of up to 85%. It’s a spectacular landscape, and a unique viticultural environment.
In Valtellina, Nebbiolo is known locally as Chiavennasca.
In the area’s unique growing conditions, the variety makes lighter wines than in the famous vineyards of the Langhe, with more delicate tannins, firm acidity, and the refined aromas that only the long hours of sunlight, extreme temperature excursions, and the long, slow ripening of mountain wines can produce.
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The mountain project
Drocco wanted to test the possibility of further characterising the mountain origins of these wines by adding the extra dimension of ageing at very high altitude.
He chose the two highest accessible sites in the valley; the Cima Bianca, at 3,000 metres above sea level at Bormio, and the Cima La Salin above Livigno. Both are iconic ski destinations, with mountain chalets where the wines could conveniently be cellared.
Drocco selected two wines with special significance for the company, both from the excellent 2016 vintage. The single-vineyard Valtellina Superiore Valgella Vigna Fracia comes from a plot purchased by founder, Nino Negri, in 1897 as part of the original estate.
It is vinified in the most classic of styles: temperature controlled fermentation and pumping over of the cap, with around 15 days of maceration and ageing in traditional Slavonian oak barrels.
The Valtellina Superiore Sfursat Carlo Negri on the other hand, is named after the son of the founder, who was responsible for the modern development of the company. Sfursat represents the long Valtellina tradition of producing full-bodied, long-ageing wines from partially dried grapes, in a style similar to Amarone.
In July 2022, 1,200 magnums of each label were taken from the company cellars in Chiuro to the chalets in Bormio and Livigno, where they stayed until the summer of 2025. As a control, 300 of each were aged for the full period in the Negri cellars.
Drocco was looking for the answers to two questions. Firstly, do the wines aged at high altitude taste and smell significantly different to those from the underground cellars of the winery? And secondly, if there is a difference in the taste profile, what is it?
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The results… so far
I tasted the wines with Drocco last month and the answer to the first question is a resounding yes – the wines taste very different. One is not necessarily superior to the other, but they do appear to show a different state of evolution.
The Vigna Fracia from the cellars in Chiuro was a classic pale Nebbiolo shade with a transparent rim. The nose was mid-intensity but broad and expressive, with dark berries, sweet spices (perhaps aniseed?) some laurel and subtle notes of sweet leather; all very attractive.
The palate was rather dry, perhaps a little austere, long on the finish with a distinctive note of white pepper. A very classic Valtellina.
The Vigna Fracia from 3,000m was a much brighter, darker ruby shade, and on the nose it had a very fresh, precise fruit and floral character. There was less breadth and nuance but more intensity.
The palate had a great attack and a very dynamic progression, with lovely integration of the tannins and a fresh, almost crunchy finish of wild berries. A wine with bags of juice and energy.
The Sfursat from the company cellars had a refined nose with the classic aromas of a partially dried-grape wine: fig and dates, some damp straw, and raisiny fruit.
The palate had a fleshy middle and a warm finish, with dried fruit and dark chocolate – a very typical Sfursat from a great vintage, showing the first signs of maturity but with ample margin for evolution.
Again, the first noticeable difference in the high altitude wine was the intensity of the colour. On the nose, if the cellar version had a pruney character, the mountain version was all fresh plum. The palate had a vibrant entry, enormous volume in the progression, and a finish with tangy acidity, fresh fruit and floral aromatics.
A very powerful, emphatic wine, but one with great balance in which the alcohol (16% abv!) was perfectly integrated. In the case of the Sfursat, the differences between the two samples were even more marked than for the Vigna Fracia.
A final question
The result of the experiment begs a third question. What is the reason for the difference? Is it to do with atmospheric pressure ? At sea level, pressure is calculated as 1.0 atmospheres (atm). At 3,000m above-sea-level it falls to 0.68 atm – a reduction of one-third.
The amount of oxygen in the air is the same as at sea level, but the reduced pressure means it is less assimilable. Does this slow down oxidation?
The annual temperature range at altitude was 6-12°C. In the cellars in the valley, it was 10-15°C. Could a difference of 3.5°C in the average temperatures over the year explain the difference?
The experiment will now be repeated with different wines, and their evolution monitored by a team from Turin University to try to find answers to these questions.
The project has the potential to open a lot of scientific windows. Whether it will lead to high-altitude ageing on a wider scale remains to be seen but in the meantime, by involving the snowy mountain tops of the Valtellina in the cycle of wine production, Drocco’s intuition has given an added dimension to the meaning of terroir in this beautiful region.
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Richard Baudains was born and bred in Jersey in the Channel Islands and trained to be a teacher of English as a foreign language. After several years in various foreign climes, Baudains settled down in beautiful Friuli-Venezia Giulia, having had the good fortune to reside previously in the winemaking regions of Piemonte, Tuscany, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige. Baudains wrote his first article for Decanter in 1989 and has been a regular contributor on Italian wines ever since. His day job as director of a language school conveniently leaves time for a range of wine-related activities including writing for the Slow wine guide, leading tastings and lecturing in wine journalism at L’Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche and for the web-based Wine Scholars’ Guild.