Winemaker Notes
With a dark garnet-red color, the wine shows distinctive, fine aromas of small fruits, raspberry preserves, roses and violets, with an herbal note. In the mouth, the wine has full, lively tart fruit flavors, elegant tannins and a lingering aftertaste, with traces of prunes and toasty oak.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Valtellina Superiore Quadrio is a medium brick red color and is attractive on the nose with aromas of dried cranberries, peach, dusty earth, and rosy perfume. Medium-bodied and refreshing, it has fine tannins and a very approachable feel. Name after the 15th-century castle, this is the first vintage to be entirely Nebbiolo, without the addition of 10% Merlot that it had in the past. It’s a very charming wine and has more in common with what the rest of the range has to offer, so I do admire the direction they have taken with this cuvée.
Responsible for some of the most elegant and age-worthy wines in the world, Nebbiolo, named for the ubiquitous autumnal fog (called nebbia in Italian), is the star variety of northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Grown throughout the area, as well as in the neighboring Valle d’Aosta and Valtellina, it reaches its highest potential in the Piedmontese villages of Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. Outside of Italy, growers are still very much in the experimentation stage but some success has been achieved in parts of California. Somm Secret—If you’re new to Nebbiolo, start with a charming, wallet-friendly, early-drinking Langhe Nebbiolo or Nebbiolo d'Alba.
Containing an exciting mix of wine producing subregions, Lombardy is Italy’s largest in size and population. Good quality Pinot noir, Bonarda and Barbera have elevated the reputation of the plains of Oltrepò Pavese. To its northeast in the Alps, Valtellina is the source of Italy’s best Nebbiolo wines outside of Piedmont. Often missed in the shadow of Prosecco, Franciacorta produces collectively Italy’s best Champagne style wines, and for the fun and less serious bubbly, find Lambrusco Mantovano around the city of Mantua. Lugana, a dry white with a devoted following, is produced to the southwest of Lake Garda.