Italy · Valtellina

Tenuta Scerscé

Cristina Scarpellini founded Tenuta Scerscé in 2008 on a single leased hectare in Valtellina, Lombardy. The estate now farms seven hectares of Chiavennasca across four DOCG sub-zones on steep alpine terraces between 400 and 700 metres, vinifying selected groups of terraces separately before blending.

The producer

Scarpellini came from a legal career in Milan before a client relationship with a Valtellina winery pulled her north to the mountains around 2006. She signed a lease on one hectare in the Villa di Tirano area, made her first vintage in 2008, and left law behind. Today the estate covers seven hectares across Valgella, Tirano, Inferno, and Sassella, all farmed without herbicides on granite-bedded, sandy-loam terraces that face south into Valtellina's long alpine light. Every vine is tended by hand. The estate records up to 1,500 working hours per hectare each year, because the terraces are too steep and too narrow for machinery and every task from pruning to harvest requires a person moving along a stone ledge with hand tools.

In the cellar, Scarpellini vinifies selected groups of terraces separately before blending, keeping each fermentation distinct so the finished wines draw from a wider range of material. The range runs from Nettare, a fruit-forward Valtellina Superiore DOC with fifteen days of skin maceration, through Essenza, a more structured Valtellina Superiore DOCG drawn from three sub-zones, to Infinito, a Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG made from partially dried Chiavennasca grapes. All three are Nebbiolo, but each appellation and process puts a different face on the same grape.

Known for

Alpine Nebbiolo (Chiavennasca) across Valtellina Superiore and Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG

Notable facts

The story

The Tool in the Name

The word scerscé appears in no Italian dictionary Cristina Scarpellini knew before she arrived in Valtellina. It is a Lombard dialect term for the two-pronged implement used to scrape around the base of each vine on the valley's narrow terraces, clearing new growth from the root zone without cutting into the wood. When Scarpellini decided to name her estate, she chose this word. Friends and importers outside the region had to ask what it meant. She explained: it is the tool, the specific hand-held fork used for a task that cannot be done by machine on a terrace barely wide enough for one person. The name is not a vineyard, not a family surname, not a place. It is a piece of agricultural equipment that most people in Italy have never seen, and it is the most accurate description she could find for the work her seven hectares require every year.

From the atlas

Tenuta Scerscé

At A Glance

The Producer

Cristina Scarpellini was practising law in Milan when a client relationship with a Valtellina winery around 2006 pulled her attention north to the mountains. Two years later she signed a lease on one hectare in the Villa di Tirano area and made her first vintage. The legal career was behind her.

Today Tenuta Scerscé farms seven hectares of Chiavennasca across four sub-zones of Valtellina: three hectares in Valgella near Teglio, two in Tirano, and single hectares in both Inferno and Sassella. The terraces run from 400 to 700 metres above sea level. The estate name comes from the Lombard dialect word for the two-pronged hand tool used to scrape around vine roots and clear shoots from the base of each plant on Valtellina's narrow stonewalled terraces. Scarpellini chose a term that most Italian speakers would not recognise, a word that describes, without ornament, exactly the kind of work her vineyard demands.

Place

Valtellina is a long alpine valley in Lombardy that runs east to west above Lake Como, carved by the Adda river and flanked to the north by the Rhaetian Alps. Nebbiolo has grown here for centuries under a local name, Chiavennasca, and the wines are classified under two DOCG designations. Valtellina Superiore DOCG covers the sub-zones of Sassella, Grumello, Inferno, Valgella, and Maroggia, each a distinct section of south-facing terraced hillside above the valley floor. Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG is a separate category altogether: dried grapes, higher concentration, a minimum of 14 percent alcohol, and a wine that belongs in a different conversation from the Superiore range.

Buyers who know Nebbiolo from Barolo or Barbaresco will find Chiavennasca differently proportioned. The alpine elevation and the valley's steep sun angle produce grapes with pronounced acidity and firm tannins, but the continental mountain climate keeps freshness in the fruit that the warmer Piedmontese versions do not always share.

Soil And Site

The estate's parcels sit on granite bedrock with sandy-loam topsoils. These soils drain quickly and hold little water, which pushes vines to root deeply and concentrate fruit without surplus moisture. Scarpellini trains her vines on Guyot or Sylvoz systems depending on the parcel. The Guyot-trained vines in particular respond to the valley's light exposure: Valtellina records roughly 1,900 sunlight hours per year, comparable to Pantelleria in Sicily, and the south-facing orientation of the terraces maximises that exposure across the growing season.

No herbicides are used. Scarpellini follows integrated pest management across the estate. The terraces are too steep and too narrow for any machinery, and every vine is tended by hand. The estate's own records put the annual maintenance requirement at up to 1,500 hours per hectare, an order of magnitude above what a flat domaine would spend.

Story

Scarpellini arrived in Valtellina without a winemaking background. Her academic formation was a law degree from Milan and two years at the University of Paris Sorbonne. What she brought instead was an ability to read a contract and a willingness to begin small. The first vintage at Tenuta Scerscé was made from one leased hectare. She has said she still recalls every detail of that plot.

The estate grew by adding parcels in adjacent sub-zones rather than consolidating in one appellation. That choice shaped how Scarpellini works in the cellar: with grapes coming from Valgella, Tirano, Inferno, and Sassella, she vinifies selected groups of terraces separately, keeping each fermentation distinct before blending. The method gives her a wider range of material to work with and keeps each finished wine from collapsing into a single dominant character. By the time Tenuta Scerscé had established itself across four sub-zones, the micro-vinification approach had become the core of how the range is assembled.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 1,500 hours per hectare figure is worth pausing on. A conventional flat vineyard might need 400 to 500 hours. Valtellina's terraces require three times that because every task, pruning, shoot removal, canopy management, harvest, is performed by a person moving along a narrow stone ledge with hand tools. The scerscé implement the estate is named for is part of that vocabulary: a fork-tipped tool used to clear around the base of each vine without damaging the root system.

In the cellar, Scarpellini separates terrace groups before fermentation and runs skin maceration before moving to élevage. The length of maceration varies by wine. Nettare macerates for approximately 15 days, producing a fruit-forward, approachable style. Essenza draws on terraces from Valgella, Inferno, and Sassella and receives longer contact and extended élevage, deepening tannin grip while retaining Chiavennasca's natural acidity as the structural core. Infinito undergoes partial grape drying before fermentation, the appassimento process required by the Sforzato appellation, followed by extended maceration and oak ageing.

Wines

All three wines are Chiavennasca, but each appellation and process produces a different register.

Nettare sits under Valtellina Superiore DOC and is the entry point to the range. Fifteen days of skin contact gives a wine that is ruby red, cherry-fruited, and spice-lifted, with tannins that are firm enough to have presence but integrated enough for earlier drinking. Fresh acidity runs through the mid-palate and holds the fruit together on the finish. This is Chiavennasca at its most immediately readable.

Essenza is the estate's fuller Valtellina Superiore DOCG expression, drawn from selected terraces across three sub-zones. Longer skin contact and more time in élevage produce greater aromatic depth and a more serious tannin grip. The same bright acidity that defines Nettare is present here but set against a more developed, layered fruit character and a longer finish.

Infinito is the Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG. The grapes are partially dried before fermentation, which concentrates sugars, shifts the fruit profile toward dried cherry, leather, and warm spice, and pushes the finished wine above 14 percent alcohol. The Sforzato process also changes the texture: fuller body, more weight, a wine that wants food and time. This is the most age-worthy bottle in the range.

In The Glass

Chiavennasca from Valtellina opens with dark red fruit and a lifted, slightly aromatic top note that comes partly from the granite-based soils and partly from the altitude and diurnal shift. In the mouth, the acidity is the first thing to register: clean, mouth-filling, and long. The tannins are characteristically firm but not coarse, and they dry the finish rather than grip the palate mid-sip. Across the three wines, fruit moves from the fresh cherry and spice of Nettare through the darker, more layered register of Essenza, and into the concentrated dried fruit and warmth of Infinito. What stays consistent is the acidity, the mountain freshness that keeps even the Sforzato from feeling heavy, and the fine-grained tannin that is Chiavennasca's signature regardless of appellation or élevage.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Nettare. It is a Valtellina Superiore DOC made from Chiavennasca with fifteen days of skin maceration, bottled at approachable ripeness. The fruit is direct: red cherry, lifted spice, a fresh acid line that keeps the wine moving through the mid-palate to a clean, fairly precise finish. The tannins are silky rather than drying. This is not a bottle that demands food or age, though it handles both. It is the clearest statement of what Chiavennasca tastes like when farmed on steep granite terraces by a winemaker who keeps the process clean and the vineyard work exhaustingly thorough. Once you know Nettare, Essenza makes sense as a deeper reading of the same grape, and Infinito makes sense as a different question entirely.

Anecdote

The word scerscé appears in no Italian dictionary that Cristina Scarpellini knew before she arrived in Valtellina. It is a Lombard dialect term for the two-pronged implement used to scrape around the base of each vine on the valley's narrow terraces, clearing new growth from the root zone without cutting into the wood. When Scarpellini decided to name her estate, she chose this word. Friends and importers outside the region had to ask her what it meant. She explained: it is the tool, the specific hand-held fork used for a task that cannot be done by machine on a terrace barely wide enough for one person. The name she picked is not a vineyard, not a family surname, not a place. It is a piece of agricultural equipment that most people in Italy have never seen.

Final Word

Tenuta Scerscé is seven hectares of alpine Nebbiolo farmed by hand on terraces that require more annual labour than almost any comparable estate in Italy. Cristina Scarpellini built the estate from one leased plot in 2008 and assembled a range that moves from an approachable Valtellina Superiore through to a full Sforzato without losing sight of what Chiavennasca does at altitude: firm acidity, fine tannin, and mountain fruit that stays fresh even at the top of the range.

Sources

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