Involt Agnelot
Here is the Involt Agnelot team: Mario Bassi is the winemaker with occasional external oenological consultancy, Stefano Bassi (his grandson) is sales manager who also follows grappa distillation and hospitality - Carlo: vineyard and cellar manager.
The Involt Agnelot winery was born from the desire of some wine enthusiasts in Valtellina to give life to their own wine production, which fully reflects the unique peculiarities of the territory: an area in the province of Sondrio in upper Lombardy traditionally devoted to the cultivation of vines and winemaking thanks to the work and sacrifices of our ancestors, who with difficulty obtained terraces on the sunniest side of the mountain and dedicated them to vineyards.
The place from which our production derives was reclaimed by the owner Mario Bassi himself in 2012-2013, years in which some new selections of vines were planted while some already existing plants, whose age dates back to about 100 years, have been left, therefore in our vineyard it is still possible to find ungrafted vines, authentic and with their own roots.
The wines are born on the terraced slopes of the Rhaetian slope in the territory of the municipality of Bianzone, in a place in Valtellina that boasts a long and consolidated tradition of so-called heroic viticulture: every single vineyard-related activity here is still done by hand. On this 6-hectare area that goes from 500 to 700 meters above sea level, nature offers warmth, protection from strong winds from the surrounding mountains and ideal climatic conditions for growing vines. The climate is continental with fairly cold winters and hot summers. The typical constructions of dry stone walls not only reinforce the soil but during the day they capture the heat of the sun which is gradually released during the night. Furthermore the strong temperature variations between day and night favor the expression of our vines of which the prince is the Nebbiolo also known as Chiavennasca as well as others like Brugnola, Pignola, Russola and Traonasca, all native vines.
The vineyard is the first place where the quality of our wines is born. For the cultivation of the vines we follow methods that respect nature and the Valtellina tradition in terms of viticulture: for this reason we do not resort to any type of herbicide, chemical fertilizer or other similar treatments.
In our vineyard we consider ourselves as collaborators of nature therefore all the necessary operations are carried out manually such as pruning, tying and leaf removal up to the cutting of the grass between the rows three times a year.
When it's time to harvest the fruits of our work in the vineyard, our attention is entirely focused on quality: the grapes are harvested strictly by hand, bunch by bunch, in order to best preserve the hard work of a year. We use small crates, in which the bunches don’t risk to be crushed and keep their integrity intact.
However, not all the grapes that leave the vineyard are destined to become wine: another rigorous manual selection awaits the fruits harvested in the cellar to eliminate any defect or minimal rot before the subsequent processing stages.
The vinification then proceeds with destemming and fermentation, while by choice we do not carry out any type of pressing: we want ours to be a completely natural production process.
On the valley floor, in the locality of Tresenda in the municipality of Teglio, stands our cellar, the place assigned to the transformation of the grapes into wine and, above all, to the aging of the latter. Thus, between the stone walls that faithfully reflect the Valtellina tradition, materials such as the steel of the tanks and the glass of the bottles but not the wood stand out: instead of the traditional oak barrels there are about thirty large terracotta jars, the characteristic containers intended for the refinement of wines that distinguish the production of Involt Agnelot.
The wine initially rests in stainless steel containers for a period of two years, during which it cleans itself of the sediments present and reaches the necessary maturation by eliminating the most marked acidity traits and finding its own balance.
At the end of this period, the wine faces a subsequent maturation step which, unlike almost all the wineries in the area, does not take place in contact with the wood. To the traditional wooden barrels and barriques we deliberately prefer terracotta amphorae of 1000 liters each where our products rest for another 12 months. This choice is the result of the desire to produce truly typical wine that reflects the territory and the grapes from which it comes.
From the unpressed skins we distill about 900 bottles of noble white grappa by hand (using a small discontinuous bain-marie alembic present in the cellar).
Terroir: Clay mixed with rocky sediments at 500 meters and as you climb towards 700 meters it becomes almost exclusively rocky. The climate is continental with fairly cold winters and hot summers, always windy, on the Rhaetian side of the Alps.
Fertilizers: green manure – Pesticides: none– Weeding: manual processing – Yeasts: spontaneous fermentation
Rigorous manual selection of grapes first in the vineyard and then bunch by bunch in the cellar, aging over the years, stressing the wine as little as possible during all processes.
We produce high quality wines, according to a philosophy based on respect for the local tradition and on the close link with the territory: starting from our name in dialect, which refers to the origins of our family, up to the processing of the vineyards and grapes, to give life to genuine, fresh, typical, unique and never identical products. Valtellinese wines that taste of Valtellina
