Wine making in the Valtellina: traditional nebbiolo from Bruno Leusciatti

The Valtellina wine making region of Italy seems to be slowly splitting down two wine making styles: one is the traditional capturing of the nebbiolo character, and the other is making fatter, higher alcoholic wines that may appeal to new markets but that aren’t necessarily a reflection of the wine making tradition of the Valtellina.

I had the pleasure recently of meeting the wine maker of one of the traditional Valtellina nebbiolo styles, and his wine is truly worth the taste. Bruno Leusciatti is a humble man of the vineyards who has no pretension about making grand wines. His aim is to do the best he can with what he’s got, making modest wines to the best of his ability that he hopes will please his customers.

Bruno inherited his vineyards from his father, in the heart of the Valtellina wine making region at Sassella. His cellar is under his house, he uses chestnut wood for ageing and he is the only pair of hands that works the vineyard, completes the harvest and does the winemaking. Bruno even bottles and labels the wine himself.

The vineyards are in the truly heroic part of the Valtellina region, and all grapes are picked, by necessity, by hand. The Leusciatti vineyards sit directly above Bruno’s house and the little funicular machines used to transport the grapes down the mountainside descend right into Bruno’s front yard and driveway.

Amongst the hype of the recent Nebbiolo Grapes event in Sondrio, Bruno’s “Sassella ‘Del Negus’” from 2005 quietly conquered a couple of the more discerning palates around. Having tasted it myself, the wine is incredibly elegant and delicate. It woos the drinker with its charm that has nothing to with thick alcohol and heavy body.

From the Lavinium blog we read: “This wine left me speechless. It’s a kind of wine that I would use a term that I never use: beautiful. Beautiful because it’s extraordinarily pure, with perfumes of flowers and stones, intense and very refined, elegant, drinkable, perfect wine with food, but not to be taken for granted; intrinsic with a fascinating melodic expression, that conquers without hesitation.”

That might sound overly poetic, but believe me, you should really try the wine. I haven’t tasted that kind of purity before, either. I’m lucky, because Bruno Leusciatti lives down the road from me and being a salt-of-the-earth, accommodating man, he sells his wine from his house cellar for a mere six to eight euros... Needless to say, he can’t make enough for the demand and it actually upsets him to turn customers away.

Photo | Flickr