Master Winemaker 100: Alberto Stella

The winemaker at Italy’s Ruffino features in this year’s Master Winemaker 100 guide. He tells db about dreams of Sicily, the power of coffee and why we need not fear vintage variation.

Alberto Stella joined the Ruffino team in April 2024, bringing with him over a decade of international experience. His winemaking outlook has been shaped by time spent at wineries not only in Italy’s Veneto, Tuscany and Sicily, but also in New Zealand, Canada and South Australia. Stella’s current role sees him bring this rich understanding of both traditional and more innovative techniques to his work as part of a team alongside Ruffino’s two other winemakers, Olga Fusari and Rita Orrù. Stella has particular responsibility for the Chianti Classico DOCG wines of Tenute Ruffino and for Tenute Greppone Mazzi in Montalcino. These estates produce some of the company’s most high-profile wines, including Riserva Ducale, Riserva Ducale Oro, Romitorio di Santedame Chianti Classico Gran Selezione DOCG and Greppone Mazzi Brunello di Montalcino DOCG.

A wise person once told me to be humble. Learn by observing. Work hard. Insist and persist – the results will come.

A great wine should leave a lasting impression. It must embody balance, elegance and complexity.

A great winemaker should be a translator of the land and the grapes. Our hand should adapt, allowing the vineyard’s stories to emerge in the glass.

Perfection is precision and timing; doing less, but doing it better, both in the vineyard and in the cellar.

The thing I’d most like to change about the wine world is its form of standardisation that tends to limit opportunities for craftsmanship within the production process.

I wish I could tell the consumer who drinks my wine that the best is yet to come. I wish the next vintage will surpass the current one, and I hope each year brings a new level of surprise and delight. But, of course, it all depends on the season; sometimes the following vintage isn’t better, it’s simply different. But that difference is what makes wine so endlessly fascinating.

The last time I asked a sommelier for advice, I ended up drinking a bretty wine disguised as “terroir expression”. Just terrible.

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If I couldn’t be a winemaker, I’d be a food and wine journalist: still chasing stories, just with a pen instead of a wine thief.

My next ambition is to produce a Chianti Classico Riserva in generous quantity, without compromising the quality or the soul of its origin. Crafting a limited-edition label is one thing; high volumes of excellence is the real challenge.

If I won the lottery, I’d open my own winery in Sicily, the land where I was born and partly raised.

If there were more hours in the day, I’d spend more time with my daughter. I work a lot and sometimes I miss moments I should be living with her.

When it’s all going wrong, I pause. I make a coffee. I reorganise my thoughts and my logic. Then I get back to work with clarity and purpose.

My desert island wine would be Tenuta di Fessina A’Puddara Carricante from Sicily.

Alberto Stella’s Master medals

Romitorio di Santedame 2022, The Global Sangiovese Masters 2025