Marino Lanzini VALGELLA RISERVA Valtellina Superiore DOCG (2017) –– Lombardia

Marino's slowest wine: the best bunches from the best terraces, and years in the cellar before he lets it go.

THE GRAPE
Chiavennasca — Nebbiolo of the Alps — from the oldest vines in Valgella. A Riserva here means the fruit was good enough to wait for: longer in wood, longer in bottle, released only when it is ready to be taken seriously.

THE WINE
2017 was a warm, low-yielding year in the mountains and the wine has the concentration to prove it, now softened by nearly a decade. Dried cherry and fig, tobacco leaf, liquorice, a long, savoury finish that keeps unfolding. Still plenty of life in it. Decant for an hour; drink over the next ten years.

FOOD PAIRING
The big Sunday dishes: brasato, roast game, a rib of beef, or venison with polenta. And Bitto Storico, if you can find it — the aged mountain cheese made for exactly this wine.

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.