At a tasting held in London last week, the Allegrini family shared how its single varietal, single vineyard La Poja demonstrates the fine wine potential of Corvina as a variety. “In the past, Allegrini was very different to what it is today,” Silvia Allegrini, part of the seventh generation of the family to take on the business, explained. “Before my grandfather, Giovanni, we were a very typical farm in the northeast of Italy.” Seeking to shift away from quantity of production to quality, in 1979 Giovanni Allegrini acquired La Grola, a hill in Sant’Ambrogio di Valpolicella, on top of which was a small plateau, Monte Poja. This 3 hectare plot is 320 metres above sea level, on chalky soil, with a south-easterly aspect and Lake Garda to the west helping to moderate the temperature in winter. “He decided to grow only Corvina there because he was deeply convinced of its quality,” Silvia explained. Despite the pergola system being traditional for the region (and surging in popularity once again), the vines were guyot-trained. Francesco Allegrini explained why: “We needed to reduce the number of grapes – the guyot system allowed us to double the number of plants and halve the amount of fruit. It also gave us better phenolic development and sugar concentration.” The first vintage of the wine was released in 1983. Silvia revealed that when her late father, Franco, gave some bottles of La Poja as Christmas gifts to employees as a sort of soft launch for it,
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Fine Wine
