Silente delle Marne DOCG 2017 Tenuta santa Caterina

Silente delle Marne is a wine with many stories to tell. One of them is the story of the soils of the Maddalena vineyard, made up of marls, sedimentary rocks with superficial layers of limestone and deep clay, without alluvial deposits, which are quite common in the Asti region. The presence of fossils and other microorganism remains attests to the fact that this area was once covered by the sea. Another story related to Silente is that of the Chardonnay grapevine, which has found its natural habitat in the marl soil. Perhaps for this reason, its presence in Monferrato is not a recent import, as is often believed, but dates back centuries and was already documented in the early 1800s… Based on these two elements—soil and grapevine—a project was born in the mind and heart of Guido Carlo Alleva, a winemaker by culture and not by chance, destined to become an expression of his passion for vines and wine while bringing the very soul of the terroir into the glass. This is the beginning of Silente delle Marne, with the identification of the Maddalena vineyard as the most suitable, with a methodical and rational zoning of each individual plot, almost plot by plot, to uncover the most secret geological soul, so that each Chardonnay plant was chosen from the most suitable clone for that piece of soil. In a region mostly known for red grape wines, the challenge was to lay the foundations to bring grapes to the cellar that could produce a great white wine, worthy of competing with the top-tier Burgundian examples of the same type. Now, the wine born from the heart and mind of Guido Carlo Alleva is a reality at the Tenuta Santa Caterina Winery: long-lived and fulfilling, in limited production, it has the ambition to represent the essence of the terroir, a true act of love from the winemaker for his rediscovered vineyard. In 2017, only 2,540 bottles were produced.