Marino Lanzini — Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG (2021) –– Lombardia

Nebbiolo made the Amarone way — grapes dried for months before pressing — but with mountain freshness keeping it honest.

THE GRAPE
Chiavennasca, picked and then laid out to dry in the cold alpine air through the winter. The grapes lose water, the flavours concentrate, and what would have been a light red becomes something deep and powerful. Sforzato means "forced" — the wine is pushed further than nature intended.

THE WINE
Sixteen degrees and it does not feel it, which is the trick of a good Sforzato. Black cherry, dried plum, cocoa and spice, a warm, velvety texture, and then that Valtellina acidity arriving to keep everything upright. 2021 was a balanced year and the wine is dry, not sweet, despite the richness. A wine for the cold months and a slow evening.

FOOD PAIRING
Game — venison, wild boar, a hare ragù. Aged cheeses, especially hard alpine ones. Or nothing at all: a glass by the fire after dinner is a perfectly good use of it.

THE WINEMAKER
Marino Lanzini took over his family's vineyards and cellar in Ponte in Valtellina in 2015 and started by doing the hard thing: rebuilding his grandfather's terraces in Valgella by hand, one stone at a time. He is a quiet man who makes a small amount of wine and does not rush it — oak, a little chestnut, and time. His wines taste of the family and the mountain, in that order. Nebbiolo from the Alps, farmed by someone who still climbs it.