A huge success in the town centre, for the event’s first weekend. Nearly 2,000 people at the Hallowine Party, 800 portions of pizzoccheri and the Tower Run making its debut: a weekend blending sport, tradition and music.

A bell tower dressed up with the Wine Trail, 800 portions of pizzoccheri served, a packed marquee for the Halloween celebrations and the debut of the Tower Run. A major success for the first weekend of the Rigamonti Valtellina Wine Trail, which turned the heart of Sondrio into a stage for sport, flavour and fun.

An important signal, one week ahead of the races on 7 November, confirming that the event is now far more than just a sporting fixture—one that involves the whole city.

The symbolic moment arrived at 5pm in Piazza Campello, where the big Valtellina Wine Trail banner was hoisted on the bell tower. An image set to accompany Sondrio until 8 November, the final day of the event. The opening ceremony, included in the Municipality of Sondrio’s Vie del Gusto programme, continued with a walk through the town centre alongside Nebbiolino, the Wine Trail mascot.

There was also a big turnout for the evening in Piazza Garibaldi. The Accademia del Pizzocchero di Teglio served 800 portions of the symbolic dish of Valtellina tradition, before making way for the Hallowine Party, which filled the large marquee with nearly 2,000 people for the show “Voglio Tornare negli Anni 90”.

A first taste of Saturday’s races on 7th, with course tests for the distances of 13 and 21 km—the latter organised in collaboration with SCOTT, the technical sponsor of Valtellina Wine Trail. A way to get familiar with the route and share a morning run one week before the competitive event, with the finish in Sondrio and tastings at the “Vie del Gusto”.

Tower Run, Vuletic and Chomaničová Hudecová make their mark on the debut. On Sunday, the first Sondrio Wine Tower Run took participants to tackle the 236 steps of the Torre Ligariana. The fastest was Ivan Vuletic (44”3), ahead of Filippo Bertazzini (48”1) and Mathias Mora (51”3). Among the women, Kamila Chomaničová Hudecová took the top spot (53”1), followed by Emilie Coolinge (1’04”0) and Adele Manzi (1’04”8). The wooden trophies, made by the Associazione Valtellina Intagliatori, were awarded to the winners.

At lunchtime, the marquee hosted the Mountain Food Experience, with street food from the Bignami, Lago Palù, Marinelli Bombardieri and Bosio Galli mountain refuges, the Chinnici Hotel School in Catania, the “Ancel Keys” comprehensive institute in Cilento, and APF Valtellina.

In the afternoon, it was all about the little ones, with the workshops “Slow Lab – Mini science in the cellar” and “The vineyard on a T-shirt!”, followed at 5pm by the show “Acchiappafantasmi in cantina”.

Monday 2 will be the turn of the Valtellina Wine Taste, followed by workshops and the Expo Village, up to the races over 42, 21 and 13 km on Saturday 7 November, and the big finale for families on Sunday 8.

The full programme is available on www.valtellinawinetrail.com/programma.