Sfursat Valtellina

Nino Negri Sfursat is the perfect red wine for pairing with and enhancing roasted red meats, game and ripe cheeses.

The grapes are grown on the most acclaimed parcels of Valtellina and Valtellina Superiore flanking the slopes of the Retiche Alps, along the right bank of the river Adda. They are south-facing vineyards, at between 350 and 500 metres altitude; the training system is the “archetto” variation of the Guyot. The loose, sandy soil is shallow and not very fertile and is supported by small, dry-stone walls.

After a rest in stainless steel tanks, part of the wine is placed for 20 months into 80hl Slavonian oak casks, and part into 32 and 53hl French oak casks. It then ages for some months in the bottle before being released to the market.

The bunches, selected only from the healthiest and ripest available ones, are picked by hand into boxes of 4.5 kilos each, and are then left to dry naturally for 3 months, so that the grape sugar is concentrated through dehydration. The dried grapes are then pressed and traditionally vinified by the red wine method, with a long maceration (15 days).

Nino Negri a winemaker of some repute founded the company in 1897. It was his son Carluccio who put the name on the map exporting the wines as far afield as the the UK and USA. Valtellina has four ‘crus’ (Sassella Inferno Grumello and Fracia) and Negri owns vineyards in all of them. The grape Chiavennasca is a strain of Nebbiolo and because of the steep vineyards and southerly exposures the wines are deep and complex yet always enticingly elegant even for a region so high up in the Alps.