Welcome in Valcalepio, the garden of Bergamo.
Bergamo represents the heart of Lombardy agricultural and productive compartment.
Bergamo Region hides some amazing surprises: you can enjoy mountains, hills and even plain territories there.
Traveling through our charming countryside you’ll spot many Medieval castles, churches, abbeys and monasteries: signs of a rich and vivid past.
Looking carefully to the map you will spot a large green area at the border of Bergamo Urban Territory: that’s Valcalepio, the Garden of Bergamo.
Technically speaking Valcalepio is a long and thin band expanding between Adda and Oglio rivers for 70 kilometers.
The hills reach inclinations where it is really difficult to grow vines but these same elements give to the wines their unique characteristics of structure and personality.
Their vineyards mirror Valcalepio producers at best. In Valcalepio you will meet vine growers, wine producers and bottlers.
Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio was founded in 1976 as a free association for all those producers that still grow their vine and make their wine in Bergamo. Their aim was to safeguard and promote the wines of their land.
The first President was Giampiero Lurani Cernuschi, taking the chair for two years. His successor was Count Bonaventura Grumelli Pedrocca who has been President of Consorzio for 32 years leaving the chair in 2010. It was then Enrico Rota turn for four years. In 2014 Count Emanuele Medolago Albani succeeded to him and is still in charge of Consorzio.
Director of Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio is since 1995 the oenologist Sergio Cantoni who succeeded to Carlo Zadra and Riccardo Guadalupi when he got in Bergamo from Piemonte.
The history of Consorzio Tutela Vacalepio started in 1976 whit 22 wineries and 1 DOC to safeguard (that Valcalepio DOC officially recognized in that same 1976.
Time passed and many things have changed since then.
Nowadays Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio has 80 members representing more than 80% of Valcalepio DOC total production. This percentage ratified the role of Consorzio as guardian of the Erga Omnes for the DOC recognizing its fundamental role in safeguarding and promoting every the DOC producers (members and not members of Consorzio).
But also the DOCs are now more than they used to be in the beginning. Nowadays Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio safeguard and promote DOC Valcalepio, DOC Terre del Colleoni or Colleoni and the IGT Bergamasca.
Consorzio Tutela Valcalepio represented and still represents the centre of safeguarding and promotion activities not only for wine production but for the entire region of Bergamo.
Its motto is Together We Can and it brings forward the idea that wine is a precious jewel of the territory and the culture producing it.
Wine is a messenger of its territory.
Valcalepio is in this sense The Wine of Bergamo.
