Il Sasso

From Verona, walk up Negrar’s valley until you reach a ‘ Rock’ of Limestone – this is Il Sasso (sasso is ‘rock’ in Italian). It’s here that the grape varieties Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella grow deep into the terraced limestone in search of water. Soon enough, the interaction of roots, water and limestone¹ soils will bring a palpable tension to the bottled wines. And, as we’ll see below, Il Sasso’s young owner Stefano Bellamoli focuses on preserving this tension. He tracks and knows the terracing here (soil, sun exposition, water retention, grape variety) like the back of his hand, because he has it in his notebook; he eschews wood (and its spice) in favour of unlined cement diamonds and ceramic eggs. All of this is done with the backdrop of an exacting viticulture that also happens to be certified organic. This is Valpolicella for minimalists.

Negrar and Il Sasso’s Terracing
From the Latin Vallis-poli-cellae, Valley-of-many-cellars, derives the denomination Valpolicella. The valley and subzone of Negrar is Vallpolicella’s  most well known on account of the number and fame of its historic producers (for example, Giuseppe Quintarelli). It’s here at just over 300 meters in the Pigneto cru that newcomer il Sasso is making its mark. Many producers in Valpolicella have tracks of limestone; yet, Stefano reminds us, the old system of terracing gives the wines just the right exposition, both less and more sun,  to give lower yields while retaining acidity. Stefano aims not merely to pick early for fresh wines, but to pick the right vines, exposed differently, at the right time, for resulting freshness, depth, and tension.

Valpolicella Classico: The Cinnabar Sunrise
Il Sasso has three wines, with the Valpolicella Classico being the epitome of the house style. Its color – a translucent red cinnabar – entrances.  So too does its essential and subtle feel at 11.50% alcohol, 5.30 g/l total acidity, and 23mg/l SO2². The tricky part here is not drinking it too quickly.

It’s worth remembering that most producers start with Amarone as the epitome of their house style, and work backwards, with their other wines being lesser shadows of that dark, ripe-cherries-under-alcohol style. In fact, their bottling of Valpolicella Classico is most often an afterthought, made with leftover grapes at the end of harvest. Stefano inverts this process, and aesthetic:

For years, I  vinified the Valpolicella Classico bottling to better understand the tension obtained by the limestone terraces. No wood, no forced extract, and some use of the whole clusters, which is never seen in Valpolicella. What I tasted in the tanks confused and scared me as much as it excited me.

The Valpolicella wines I had been tasting in the area didn’t have this translucent color, floral aromatics, and high-acid tension. Some old-time cellar masters and agronomists who were helping me said the wines tasted like something made a generation ago. That was strangely encouraging.

He further details some of the process for his Valpolicella Classico:

It’s hand-harvested and collected in small crates to avoid any pre-crushing and fermentation. We pick the younger vineyards and then pick early those vines more exposed to the sun. We do not control the fermentation with sulphites or enhancers. We start with a pied de cuvee and the natural yeasts in our grapes do the rest. This is a coferment of all the varieties, with a little more Rondinella for freshness. This wine is our first fermentation of the year, with grapes that have moderate quantities of sugar, partial destemming and light crushing. Fermentation proceeds to complete dry and then we quickly separate the must. We then proceed to a quick soft pressing – part of the freshness you’ll find here. The wine is then fined in steel tanks during the winter and then bottled in spring. No filtration, no blends, no chemicals, only minimum sulphites added.

Valpolicella Superiore: Cherry Pit Complexity
His next wine, the Valpolicella Superiore isn’t, excuse the bad translation,  ‘superior’ to the ‘classico’ – just different. The Superiore uses older vines from less exposed terraces, and is picked a bit later. Fermentation and elevage get changed from stainless steel in the ‘Classico’ to unlined diamond-shaped³ cement tanks in the ‘Superiore.’ Stefano explains further:

Hand-harvested…coferment of all the varieties…this wine uses the best – perfectly ripened – grapes of the vineyard that ripen later from the terraces with east facing expositions. Partial destemming and whole cluster fermentations. When completely dry, we let the must macerate for a month. No passito is added, as is custom in area, for easy muscle. Soft pressing and aging for at least 12 months in the cement diamonds. No filtration.

What results is the telltale Il Sasso tension, combined here with undulating layers of cherry and bitter cherry pit, including the punchy floral-acidic Marasca and the darkly colored sweet-and-sour Amarena. Vibrant and medium-bodied; a good match for those first days of autumn when you reach for a light sweater. With a few years in bottle, the wine continues to become more complex without losing precision. For lovers of slightly aged red wines (say 2 – 5 years), it’s a must try.

Amarone as Amore
And, without the drum roll, Il Sasso’s Amarone. We don’t know if it’s because there are cool looking ceramic eggs used instead of barriques, or if it’s the spontaneous fermentation, or the terraced limestone vineyards, or some Amarone whispers Stefano is doing here, but we’ve fallen head over heels with Il Sasso’s Amarone (and we are Amarone haters!). With its spine-tingling acidity and impasto style fruit, it could mark a new style for the whole of Valpolicella looking to make Amarone wines that have more poise, and match better with the food on the table.

When we talk about an impasto style fruit, it’s important to underline that Il Sasso does this with a dry or secco Amarone, in other words, under 2gr/l of residual sugar⁴.  To have an Amarone that is secco, and fulfills the three Amarone DOC mandated  ‘taste’ requirements of “full-bodied (pieno), plush (vellutato), and giving warmth (caldo),” is incredibly difficult without having exquisite grapes, dried and vinified exquisitely. Limited bottles but each one and vintage has a story to tell. Here are a few notes on current vintages:

Il Sasso ‘Aruit’ [declassified Amarone della Valpolicella] 2019:
The Languished Vintage. The is wine was rejected by the Amarone DOC, thus it’s named ‘Aruit’ ([The wine] languished). The declassified Amarone’s oxidative (not oxidized) notes, along with the dried fruit, bring an interesting dark-yet- bright chiaroscuro aspect to the wine.

Il Sasso Amarone della Valpolicella 2020:
The Svelte Vintage. Stefano describes it as “…one of the most svelte (snello) vintages we had so far! Very timid color, very vertical, strong nose, high acidity, but thin and elegant, so even lighter than 2019 perhaps.” There’s a three-dimensional depth here that goes on for days.

Closing Comments
Is Il Sasso a traditional producer? Is he an edgy natural wine producer? The answer is yes and no to both of those questions. He’s from Valpolicella and doesn’t want to be the exception to the rule, to be pigeon-holed as an edgy natural wine producer.  He does, however, want to be a part of small but growing group of producers who recognize that Valpolicella needs to seriously consider starting to produce again excellent ‘Classico’ and ‘Classico Superiore’ bottlings that highlight the translucence and natural acidity of the terroir here.  And, finally, Stefano has a request to all those future Amarone bottles: if you can be decidedly less sweet, we’ll find ways to love you more!

¹ The local calcarenite gialla (It.), or, yellow limestone.
² These are the 2021 vintage lab results.
³ The 20HL tank come the Venetian producer CLC.
⁴ Article 6 of the Italian government mandates for Amarone production limits residual sugar to 12 gr/l per liter up to 14% alcohol. Most producer are near that limit, and even more, since the mandate allows even more sugar for alcohol percentages above 14% up to 16%.
http://catalogoviti.politicheagricole.it/scheda_denom.php?t=dsc&q=1004