Valcalepio embodied the renaissance of wine production in the bergamasca region.
After a period of wild industrialization, in the 70s a new wave of wine making enthusiasm was born and it gave rise to a new adventure enrolling the wine of Bartolomeo Colleoni.
The main centre of this project of renovation was the Cantina Sociale Bergamasca. It was in its laboratories that a great range of experimental vinification processes involving native vineyards and new varieties was carried on in order to choose the two varieties that in the end gained the DOC recognition.
Most of the producers of this region regard as fundamental the year 1976 when the two Valcalepio DOC varieties (the white one and the red one) were legally recognized.
It was a really brave choice: for the Valcalepio Rosso DOC two important and widly known varieties were chosen, namely Merlot and Cabernet. The Valcalepio Bianco DOC chosen varieties were, on the other hand, White Pinot and Grey Pinot.
It was also a period when great changes in the agricoltural life-style and organization were taking place: there was the passage from a sharecropping system to the direct management of the land by the farmers. Moreover new and small productive realities started emerging in an always evolving and enlarging wine-consuming system.
The constitution in that same span of time of the Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio, aiming at the union of the different and multifaceted realities of the region, was another important event taking place in the Bergamasca region. Its main aim was the developement of these new productive realities.
The brand of the Consorzio, the image of Bartolomeo Colleoni, was chosen as a symbol of the effort of the institution towards the renovation of the bergamasca wine producing reality aiming at conquering new (near and far away) markets.
The Camera di Commercio and the Amministrazione Provinciale helped the producers in this critical passage towards a brand new productive and commercial system. In 1993 a new urgence for an innovative variety was felt in the Consorzio and among the producers. The common efforts of all (institutions, Consorzio and producers) gave origin to a new Valcalepio Rosso Doc wine, the Riserva, characterized by a longer period of ageing. In the new production regulation it was also introduced the native variety of Moscato Passito.
The Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio was the first institution in Italy gaining the product certification for its wines. At the basis of this certification there is the passion and the pragmatism typical of bergamasca people. First of all there was a deep analysis of the consumer’s expectations in order to fullfil his/her desires and to assure him/her about what he/she is going to drink. A jury composed of experts was created and it redaced a set of rules based on the sensory analysis method and describing the organolectic characteristics of Valcalepio wines. In the end, the Consorzio engaged an external institution, working following the ISO rules, focused on garanteeing the correspondence between the promised and the effective quality.
This was the origin of certified Valcalepio
This choice stands as a symbol of the bergamasca wine production enrollment towards the consumer’s desires and needs. The aim is the creation of a long lasting and continuative relationship with the consumer.
Another fundamental decision, taken with this same aim, was that of selecting a bottle representing the product. It is a simple bottle, just as the wine’s producers. On the bottle there is the Colleoni brand, and this stand as a guarantee of the product: the bottles awarded with the Colleoni image can only contain the certified Valcalepio DOC.
