English and knowledge are fine, complacency less so. So, no tastevin around our neck, no incomprehensible terms that make the customer feel uncomfortable. In the cellar we celebrate the pleasure of good drinking.” The passion poured into every activity is perpetuated by a lively young team, who grew up listening to the teachings of two cornerstone figures: cellarman Maurizio Mottini and vineyard team coordinator Paolo Santabbondio, both now close to retirement age. At a little more than three hundred metres above sea level, among the red ferrous rocks capable of storing the sun's heat and flooding the Alps with Mediterranean atmospheres, Valtellina style is expressed in the most credible, clear-cut form by the Rainoldis Mood and light On the Rhaetian side, the wine growers trek up steep slopes, wasting no time looking at the view. Hikers, on the other hand, can move at a more leisurely pace and enjoy the wonderful scenery. The rows of vines undulate one after the other, forming a gigantic procession of green sheets that delicately wrap around the bare belly of the rocks. The soul of Valtellina viticulture can be understood by a climb up to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della 82 In their constant search for new ideas, the Rainoldis never lose sight of the fact that the miracle always takes place in the welcoming womb of the earth, where the grapes find the time to ripen Pas de deux Some see wisdom as a search for the truth by retreating like a hermit to a mountaintop or into the desert. The Rainoldi are cut from a different cloth. Their search produces energy and movement. Now aged fifty plus, Aldo still embraces change, holding on to this inclination like precious capital. He does not play it by ear, but follows a course guided only by a desire to enrich his wine collection with innovative quality, capable of astonishing. Michela too knows that there is a fine line between habit and revelation. Driven by an indomitable desire for knowledge and supported by an urge to do things well, she has never stopped studying since she joined the company in 2010. The grapes and wines, obviously, but also the laws, because this is a profession of poetry, but it is also weighed down by bureaucracy. The seed of love between Aldo and Michela was planted in Bergamo. The fruits of their labour have ripened in Valtellina and now spread far and wide. “Bringing our products to lands that do not have a strong wine tradition is a tantalising challenge,” she explains. "Take Scandinavia for example. These countries are a complex market for many reasons, but it is refreshing to see how much consumers appreciate our labels. We’re also looking with interest at Central Asia. To some people the idea of exporting wine to Kazakhstan might sound bizarre, but the same thing was said about Hong Kong and instead it has become a fought-over market.” He loves being in the vineyard, she loves exporting the wines produced in the Chiuro cellars. Together they are the emblem of an earthly impatience never limited by the already known. The wine cellar at the Aldo Rainoldi winery in Casacce di Chiuro is an absolute must-visit. As soon as you walk down the ancient stone staircase, you feel the wonder of entering a special place, where two worlds, archaic and modern, exist side-by-side. Once through the old redpainted wooden doorway, opposite the “Farmacia dei Sani” that once housed the ageing vat, your eyes are met by the spectacular sight of a long row of barrels. Everything tells of the care that the Rainoldi family and all their collaborators devote to the barrel cellar: the orderly row of Slavonian oak casks, the geometric precision of the stacked cases. And what about the Infernotto, packed with cases containing the great reserves that have made the winery's fortune and history? The temperature range is kept scrupulously under control. “In winter the thermometer never drops below 11°C and in summer it reaches a maximum of 19°C,” explains Aldo Rainoldi. "The entire building was constructed with local stone; the perimeter walls are a metre thick in places and the underground space is ventilated. We use no energy for air conditioning and ventilation, just open or close the specially designed vents.” Such balanced perfection is amazing. But then, the Rainoldis leave nothing to chance. They believe in the land, in the selection of the grapes, in the winemaking practices applied with painstaking care from the beginning to the cellar processes. In the barrel cellar, the meaning of all the activities becomes clear, revealing the philosophy of a family that for decades has blended culture and wine in a delicate combination. 68 “We aim for wines that are not just modern but have strong personality, because sometimes modernity standardises and flattens everything. They must be capable above all of expressing a taste that sometimes might still need to be acquired” Message in a bottle For extraordinary events to come about, good fortune must lend a hand. But man must be willing to accept this hand and be open to all that is new. “Once I joined the company, my first wine was Ghibellino,” recalls Aldo Rainoldi. "A white made with Sauvignon grapes. People, this is Valtellina, where wines usually compete with each other in robustness. What was it, a miracle? Not at all. No miracle. Just desire, intuition and hard work. To bottle a wine different to those normally made is a strong sign, a powerful expression of a desire to assert your own identity. Aldo’s personal territory comprises the vines and the cellar. While conversing, he never lets his guard down, not even when he seems comfortably relaxed in his chair. He listens attentively, often bursting into spontaneous reflections. He unexpectedly allows a glimpse of his wisdom to filter through, when his face takes on an air of certainty that is yet full of questions. Today, the vinification cellar produces harmonious wines, designed for contemporary tastes, but without the unreasonable anxious desire to erase the past. Not by chance is the flagship product Sfursat “Ca’ Rizzieri”, the highest expression of wine in Valtellina. 60 In Valtellina, viticulture is not a simple series of cultivated fields, it is an elegy, a song that springs from the hearts of men Allegro, adagio and vivace The Rhaetian vineyards, where the dazzling beauty of the landscape encounters the patient work of those who forged it, is the ideal stage for the Rainoldis to express their vision. Incessant contraction and relaxation, the eternal synkrisis and diakrisis, makes passion indistinguishable from action. The art of cultivating vines and the technique of making wine are essentially divided into three distinct parts. In the first and last, the movement is slow, similar to an “adagio” in which each fraction of time is dilated. These two parts play out in the vineyard and in the ageing barrels, separated by an intermezzo, during which the pace accelerates. Harvest and vinification cannot wait, they move at “allegro” and “vivace” tempos. “It is not easy to communicate all the work and knowledge involved in a bottle of wine,” explains Michela, "but those who visit our winery get infected by our enthusiasm and a desire to share genuine emotions, in a convivial yet elegant way. The winemaker’s is a special job, because it educates you to think with your mind, your hands, and your whole body. It teaches you to know your material and hold your own. “Our whole life is dedicated to wine,” Aldo notes, “but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. Expertise 74 The cellar is not only the place where the fruit of so much work is ripened, it is the beating heart of an experience that sings the praises of healthy lifestyles, a more human pace of life, and respect for the environment Wine as a culture 78 The Valtellina is the scar of an epochal collision between the European and African tectonic plates. Phenomena so ancient that just thinking about them blows your mind. All the more so when you consider that man’s average lifespan is less than a century and the history of civilisations is only a few thousand years old. Yet it was in those remote times that the rocks on which the vine has found its perfect habitat were formed. Aldo Rainoldi rejoices in this little wine kingdom that runs along the Insubric Line. "I consider myself lucky to work in such an environment. Foreigners are blown away by so much beauty.” Aldo tends his rows of vines with the responsibility of someone who is aware that he has inherited them. He looks after them with the enthusiasm of one who knows he has contributed to their expansion. And he maintains them with all the rationality of the entrepreneur and good family man. Because, after all, he is a parent eager to pass his proactive attitude on to his children, together with his insatiable desire to improve. Sometimes he looks at you with the air of someone who wants to see if you’ve understood his thinking. “We don't rest on our laurels and resign ourselves to the fact that things have to be a certain way because that's the way it's always been done.” In his thirties, he visited California, where viticulture has a much more recent history. “Perhaps for this very reason the producers there are open to experimentation. We too want to carve out a place for ourselves in the oenological history of our country with some wines that are anything but banal.” As Alda Merini, the poetess born in Milan who, however, spoke a universal language, wrote: “Vino, gagliardo come la dea ragione / in te l’idea si fa suono e / si colora il Mito” (Wine, vigorous as the goddess reason / in you the idea becomes sound and / colours the Myth) “When making wine, we must consider the substrate, soil and microclimate, but we must also let ourselves be carried away by our own sensations and personality” The Alps in a wineglass 54
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