Dirupi, Rosso di Valtellina OLÈ DOC (2024) – Lombardia

Alpine Nebbiolo with the tie off. Pour it, chill it slightly, the perfect pic-noc wine!

Olé comes from Dirupi's lowest terraces, and it's the wine they make for drinking, not for cellaring. It's aromatic, energetic and disarmingly easy. If someone tells you Nebbiolo is difficult, hand them this.

THE GRAPE
100% Chiavennasca, the Valtellina name for Nebbiolo, from terraces at 425–450 metres. It's the lowest and warmest ground Dirupi farms, which is why the fruit comes out generous and open.

THE WINE
Bright red berries, flowers and a rush of mountain herbs, with soft tannins and a lively, mineral finish. There's none of the brooding you might expect. It's fresh, a bit playful and made to be finished. Give it 20 minutes in the fridge and it's perfect.

FOOD PAIRING
A board of salumi and hard cheese, pizzoccheri, roast chicken, a mushroom pasta. Or just the sofa.

THE WINEMAKER 
Davide Fasolini (Aka Faso) and Pierpaolo Di Franco (Aka Birba) played basketball together as kids, studied oenology in Milan, and founded Dirupi in 2004 with a first vintage of 1,600 bottles. They make wine in a 16th-century palazzo in Ponte in Valtellina, from around 7 hectares split into small plots across more than 20 subzones. The vines sit on dry-stone terraces between 400 and 600 metres, some at gradients up to 70%, worked entirely by hand and organically. Everything is done by hand and organically. Every parcel is vinified on its own, with long macerations, then the two of them decide what each one wants to be.