How it all started
This is how our adventure began, in 2012 after more than a year to clean and make accessible those old fields devoured by time and the abandonment of the mountains. After finishing school, I immediately started working in the restaurants as a dining room manager, with an eye, or rather, a heart, which was increasingly curious into the world of wine. My career path has led me to work in the historic stronghold of local wine: the Az. Agricola La Costa in Valletta Brianza, mother of viticulture of that small piece of land around Lake Como called IGT TERRE LARIANE.
At the same time, with my father, we went on to learn, document and “cultivate” this adventure so as to win the fateful bet!!
Initially, we did some research to understand why there has never been a “winery in the valley”. After hearing many stories of the elderly and documented in the various local historical texts, we deduced first of all that “Mountain means little yield and double effort” as an elderly man of the village says, smiling and giving me a mocking pat on the back;
Our grandparents knew it well, the little agriculture present was only for domestic use.
“In the 1800s, iron was extracted from the mines and in the 1900s they specialized in working it,” says an another village man, in fact Valsassina is famous all over the world for its iron products; an example is Premana with its award-winning blades and scissors. The valley is teeming with small metal and flange factories where everyone has always found work and livelihood. Not to forget the strong dairy tradition that in the past has made us famous all over the world. Pragmatically, our grandparents did not need to “invent” viticulture.
Our dream was not affected by the many difficulties encountered along the way and so we decided to transform what had started as a dream, a father/son adventure, into something more: we wanted to give Valsassina, finally, its first official wine!
Throwing ourselves into this adventure was not an easy choice because of the impervious terrain that characterizes the area; a few experts have discouraged us due to the high altitude: in 2012 the news did not mention global warming in the slightest and planting a vineyard above the canonical 600 meters above sea level scared “those who knew more than us”. In addition, the conformation of Valsassina “steals” many hours of sunshine essential for proper ripening and the Pioverna that crosses it, like all watercourses that are a source of great humidity, favors the proliferation of harmful pathogens.
The perfect position of “La Riviera di Indovero” as my father wittily calls it, sees the sun rise in the east from the lowering of the mountain of Alpe Paglio already at dawn, and then, see it set in the valley that leads to Bellano to the west.
With our backs protected to the north by Mount Muggio, which shelters us from the weather, that small abandoned village seemed just the most suitable spot.
No less important is an apparently penalizing factor that then bore its “fruits”: our soils are very draining but above all very steep! This slope does not create stagnation of water and humidity (of which the vine is the enemy) and boasts our “Viticulture” as Eroica as it is carried out in impervious terrains where any type of mechanization is practically impossible. In fact, all the work is done strictly by hand.