Est. 1897 
8 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
Discover Valtellina
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.
Book this experienceNino Negri
Lombardy, ItalyNino Negri farms Nebbiolo in Valtellina, the alpine valley where vines climb terraced slopes held in place by 2,500 kilometres of dry stone walls. The cellars sit beneath the fifteenth-century Palazzo Quadrio in Chiuro, on the Sondrio side of Lombardy, with thirty-three hectares of estate vineyards in Grumello, Inferno and Valgella plus fruit from more than two hundred local growing families. The Sfursat 5 Stelle has anchored the house's modern reputation as the benchmark Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG.
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Lombardy
- Est. 1897
- 8 wines
- Tastings
- Tours
- Accommodation
- Booking required
Wines from Nino Negri
Experiences at Nino Negri
Bookable experiences, curated by our editors. External booking where marked.
Taste Valtellina
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.
Book this experiencePrivate 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.
Book this experienceDiscover Valtellina
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.
Book this experienceAbout Nino Negri
Nino Negri arrived in Chiuro from Aprica in 1897, set up his wine business in the year of his marriage to Amelia Galli, and 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, and Nino's son Carluccio joined two years later to push the estate beyond family scale.
At the end of the 1970s the winery was acquired by Gruppo Italiano Vini, which turned Nino Negri into the group's Valtellina flagship. Casimiro Maule led the cellar through the modern era and was named Italian Oenologist of the Year in 2007 for the work that built the reputation of Sfursat 5 Stelle, staying at the helm until 2017. Danilo Drocco runs winemaking today, continuing the same focus on dried-grape Sforzato and single-sub-zone Valtellina Superiore DOCG.
Estate holdings come to thirty-three hectares spread across the named crus that map onto the five sub-zones of Valtellina Superiore DOCG: Vigna Sassorosso in Grumello, Vigna Ca' Guicciardi in Inferno, and Vigna Fracia in Valgella, with further fruit from Sassella and Maroggia 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, on schist soils only 40 to 120 centimetres deep, with slopes that reach 85 per cent gradient and force a fully manual harvest.
The local name for Nebbiolo here is Chiavennasca, and the house catalogue runs from straight Valtellina Superiore through single-sub-zone bottlings such as Inferno Carlo Negri and Le Tense Sassella to the dried-grape Sfursat 5 Stelle, fermented 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, ranging 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, and the annual Nino Negri 3000 event opens a comparative tasting of wines aged at three thousand metres on the surrounding peaks.
Visiting Nino Negri
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Tastings
Available
Tours
Available
Accommodation
Not available
Booking
Required
Plan your visit
Plate I · LOMBARDY
Nino Negri on the Lombardy wine atlas
What Nino Negri makes
Nino Negri's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Nebbiolo.
Key grapes
Common questions
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Cantina Nino Negri sits at Via Ghibellini 3 in Chiuro, on the Sondrio side of the Valtellina valley in northern Lombardy. The cellars are dug under the fifteenth-century Palazzo Quadrio in the village centre, about two hours' drive north-east of Milan and three hours from Verona.
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