Your cellar, your trips, and the wines you've been tracking are right where you left them.
New here?
Free, always. Education first, we'll never sell you anything you didn't ask to see.
Already have an account?
Enter the email you signed up with and we'll send a link to choose a new password.
Nino Negri farms Nebbiolo in Valtellina, an alpine valley in northern Lombardy. Here the vines climb terraced slopes held up by 2,500 kilometres of dry stone walls. The cellars sit beneath the fifteenth-century Palazzo Quadrio in Chiuro, on the Sondrio side of the valley. The estate owns thirty-three hectares of vineyards, around 46 football pitches, in Grumello, Inferno and Valgella. More than two hundred local growing families supply further fruit. The Sfursat 5 Stelle anchors the house's modern reputation as the benchmark Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG.
Book a visit
Nino Negri arrived in Chiuro from Aprica in 1897. He set up his wine business in the year he married Amelia Galli, and he inherited a building with its own history. The Duke of Milan had granted Palazzo Quadrio to Stefano Quadrio in 1400, naming him Governor of Valtellina. The four-floor cellars Quadrio dug beneath the palazzo for the duke's wine still hold the company's barrels today. The firm was officially registered with the Sondrio Chamber of Commerce in 1925. Nino's son Carluccio joined two years later to push the estate beyond family scale.
At the end of the 1970s the winery was bought by Gruppo Italiano Vini, which made Nino Negri the group's Valtellina flagship. Casimiro Maule led the cellar through the modern era and stayed at the helm until 2017. In 2007 he was named Italian Oenologist of the Year for the work that built the reputation of Sfursat 5 Stelle. Danilo Drocco runs winemaking today. He keeps the same focus on dried-grape Sforzato and single-zone Valtellina Superiore DOCG.
The estate's holdings are single named vineyards within the five zones of Valtellina Superiore DOCG: Vigna Sassorosso in Grumello, Vigna Ca' Guicciardi in Inferno and Vigna Fracia in Valgella. Fruit from Sassella and Maroggia is bought in from a long-standing network of more than two hundred Valtellina growing families. The vines are trained guyot on terraces between 350 and 500 metres above sea level. The schist soils run just 40 to 120 centimetres deep. Slopes reach an 85 per cent gradient, which forces a fully manual harvest.
The local name for Nebbiolo here is Chiavennasca. The catalogue runs from straight Valtellina Superiore, through single-zone bottlings such as Inferno Carlo Negri and Le Tense Sassella, to the dried-grape Sfursat 5 Stelle. That wine ferments from grapes withered for around three months on traditional wooden frames called fruttai. A small Cuvée Negri metodo classico and an Ispirazione Passito Alpi Retiche IGT round out the range.
Cellar visits run Tuesday to Saturday. They range from a forty-five-minute walk-in tasting in the wine shop, through a two-hour underground cellar tour, to a private barrel-tasting itinerary for serious collectors. The wine shop is open Monday to Saturday on the standard Italian split timetable. Once a year, the Nino Negri 3000 event opens a comparative tasting of wines aged at three thousand metres on the surrounding peaks.
Plate I · LOMBARDY
Wine area
Alpine Nebbiolo terraces facing south across the Adda valley, where Chiavennasca makes the only mountain DOCG built on hand-built dry stone walls.
Winery
Chiuro, Sondrio · Valtellina
1 tasting and 2 tours, checked by our editors. From €20.
Tasting
A short walk through the fifteenth-century Palazzo Quadrio cellars in Chiuro, finishing with a tasting of three wines representing the principal Valtellina denominations in the wine shop.
on ninonegri.it
Cellar Tour
A guided two-hour tour through the corridors and historic barrel rooms dug under the fifteenth-century Palazzo Quadrio, followed by a tasting of four mountain Nebbiolo selections in the dedicated tasting room. Reservation required.
on ninonegri.it
Cellar Tour
A two-hour private itinerary through the cellars including a tasting from the barrel and five wines drawn from across the Sassella, Grumello, Inferno and Sfursat selections. Reservation required.
on ninonegri.it
Not seeing the estate you want? Estates without an online listing are reachable directly, and their phone and email are in Plan your visit.
Nino Negri's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Nebbiolo.
Tell us what you need and we'll help you reach Nino Negri and arrange a visit or tour. We reply within two working days.
Lombardy
Est. 1897 
13 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Booking required 
