Valcalepio DOC

The wine of Bergamo, made on the hills and foothills between the city and Lake Iseo. The DOC was recognised in 1976, and its protective consortium — founded two years earlier with twenty-two members and now numbering more than eighty — took as its emblem the effigy of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the condottiero whose chapel stands in Bergamo’s upper town.

The Terroir The registered file credits the pedological conditions, the eluvial character of the soil, the hill and foothill siting and the favourable microclimate with producing optimally ripened grapes suited to wines of real character and typicity. Eluvial is the operative word: these are soils formed in place by weathering rather than carried in by water, which on the Bergamask foothills means marl and calcareous clay breaking down where it sits, with good drainage and low fertility.

A Claim, Fairly Made The file closes with an unusually frank piece of institutional pride, and it is worth quoting: many viticultures match the Bergamask for antiquity of origin; several surpass it for size of harvest; very few, however, can boast so pronounced a qualitative evolution through time. That is a candid way of saying the region was not historically distinguished and has become good relatively recently — which is true, and rarer to admit than to demonstrate.

Grape Varieties The white is a blend of Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay, which the file says is made on the lighter soils of the zone and contributes a characteristically fine, subtle aroma. The red is Merlot with Cabernet Sauvignon, and there is a riserva. The fourth type is the outlier and the interesting one.

Moscato Passito Valcalepio Moscato Passito is made from Moscato di Scanzo, the black-berried aromatic Moscato native to the province — the same grape behind the tiny Moscato di Scanzo DOCG next door. The grapes are dried, then fermented on their skins, and the wine is released after roughly three years. A red passito Moscato is a genuinely unusual thing, and it is the one wine here that exists nowhere else.

The Critical Take The Bordeaux blend is competent and unremarkable — well made, medium-weight, and hard to distinguish from a hundred other northern Italian Merlot-Cabernets. What makes Valcalepio worth a page is the passito and the fact that the zone sits between Franciacorta and Valtellina and is overshadowed by both. If you are in Bergamo, drink the Moscato; if you are not, it is unlikely to find you.

At the Table Bergamask cooking: casoncelli, polenta taragna, braised beef, and Taleggio and Strachitunt from the valleys above. The passito goes with hard aged cheese and with dark chocolate. Red at 16–17°C, passito at 14–16°C.

Benchmark Producers Medolago Albani, Il Calepino, Tenuta Castello di Grumello, Tallarini.