The only element that announces the entrance of the ArPePe winery is a door placed in a wooden barrel. Once passed that threshold, you enter the premises wanted by Guido Pelizzatti at Buon Consiglio. Those of today are just a part of the original winery, obtained under the vineyards of Grumello. The space for fining measures 1,400 square meters and grows in height for 8 meters, lapping the roots of the terraced vines.
From the fermentation tanks, the red wines of ArPePe are soon transferred to large barrels made of Slavonian oak, chestnut and acacia. These are mainly containers of fifty hectoliters, in which the wine rests without being squeezed by wood.
Aside from the Rosso di Valtellina (which passes from an Ermenegildo Velo vitrified concrete vat dating back to the 60s to large oak barrels for six months and at least one year in the bottle!) only Fiamme Antiche and Ultimi Raggi have an aging period of only twelve to eighteen months in oak barrels. The other wines spend years of slow evolution (with times that are significantly higher than the requirements of the specifications) until bottling, strictly marked by the phases of the moon, as at the time of Arturo. Then, again, to rest, this time in bottles.
On the traditional aging of Nebbiolo, they invest accurate expectations: a progressive gain in sophistication and the enhancement of native lands with their specificity. There, you will find a mineral feature, but also the freshness of flavor notes. Sassella shows itself as imperious, dominating, as the rocks on which it lives. At the ArPePe House they do not fear pallid colors, those ruby red hues increasingly tending to garnet with the passage of time. You can trace warm sensations of stone kissed by the sun, of spices and of ripe fruit or of spirit, but also sensations of red berries and leather.
On top of the barrels, vines climb up to the top of the De Piro Stronghold, dominated by the medieval De Piro Castle, reopened to the public after the restoration by the FAI.
