Ar.Pe.Pe

History

Ar.Pe.Pe. takes its name from the founding Arturo Pelizzatti Perego, who established the estate in Valtellina in the 1980s after the family had already been involved in the wine trade in the region for generations. The winery passed to his children, and today it is run by Isabella, Emanuele, and Guido Pelizzatti Perego, who have maintained a deliberately small-scale, uncompromising approach to production. The Valtellina at large spent much of the late twentieth century in commercial decline, with terraced hillside viticulture becoming economically unsustainable for many growers. Ar.Pe.Pe. stayed the course and is now widely regarded as one of the benchmark references for the appellation, particularly for long-aged Nebbiolo from the Sassella subzone.

Vineyards

The vineyards sit on the steep, south-facing terraced slopes above the town of Sondrio, carved from rocky glacial moraine soils with a high proportion of gneiss and schist. Altitude ranges across the various holdings, but all sites benefit from strong sun exposure and the alpine temperature swings that preserve acidity in the fruit. The grape is Nebbiolo, known locally as Chiavennasca, which here produces wines noticeably leaner and more mineral than its counterparts in Piedmont. The Sassella cru, which includes their Stella Retica Riserva, is considered the finest and most structured of Valtellina's subzones. Grumello, represented by the Rocca del Piro, tends toward slightly softer contours. Specific farming certifications are not prominently documented, but the estate's small scale and manual approach to the terraces suggest close attention to the vineyards.

Winemaking

Ar.Pe.Pe. is known for an old-fashioned, non-interventionist cellar style built around extended aging rather than extraction. Fermentations are unhurried, and the wines spend considerable time in large, older wood before bottling, which preserves freshness and allows the wines' structural elements to integrate gradually. The Riserva bottlings, particularly the Stella Retica, receive the longest aging and are released well after the vintage. The Rosso di Valtellina serves as the estate's more accessible entry point, drawn from younger vines or declassified fruit, and typically shows the floral, red-fruited side of Chiavennasca without the tannic framework of the Superiore wines. Il Pettirosso sits between the two, offering Superiore-level structure from a single vineyard without the extended reserve aging. Filtration practice is not publicly detailed, but the wines' clarity and longevity suggest careful, minimal handling.