The soil of almost all of vineyards in Valtellina is mainly sandy, formed by the disintegration of the granite rocks during the retreat of the glaciers that one time covered the whole Valtellina.
It is a very permeable soil, suitable for growing grapes. There is never stagnant water and it is rare in Valtellina that the screw goes in "water stress" because the roots, especially in the chiavennasca, are wedged between the rocks for 5/6 meters in depth. In these conditions the vine always find the quantity of water necessary for its survival, also in periods of drought.
On the most inclined terraces the system of vine cultivation is called "ritocchino" system. With this system, we went on until 1980; then in an estate of 13 hectares, the owner decided to change the cultivation system into Giropoggio method consisting to create flat grounds and planting the screws on the edges.
All that born after years and years of studying how to decrease the processing costs of the screw by introducing a minimum of mechanization. And in the 80's, thanks to this giropoggio system that was possible; in fact the annual working hours/ha became 900/1000 hours instead of the previous 1600 hours. In conjunction at this, there was a careful study of clonal selection: it started from about 100 different clones of chiavennasca, passing 5 into the final 3 that were planted in the new facility. Since then all the new installations (where it is possible to do that) are converted into the Giropoggio system.
The main cultivation system of the wine is Guyot system. In the older plants at ritocchino method it is expecially used the modified Guyot system (called Guyot system with archetto method), that consists of to bend the branch and get it back to the plant on the edge lower. The new laws about the production of Valtellina wine provides for the new plants a minimum of 4,000 plants per hectare and with the Giropoggio method there is the possibility to have 5,000 plants per hectare.