Winemaker Notes
Blend: 80% Chardonnay, 20% Grechetto
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense and layered white with cooked apple, pineapple and vanilla cream character. Full body, bright acidity and a long, tangy finish. Always a great white from Italy. One of the best. A blend of chardonnay and grechetto given the full Burgundy method in fermenting and aging.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I never get enough of this beautiful wine. The 2013 Cervaro della Sala is mostly Chardonnay (80%) blended with an Umbrian native grape, Grechetto. The results are glorious, and this vintage represents slight tweaks to the winemaking style in favor of more finesse and elegance. Back in 2009, Cervaro della Sala was executed in a heavier style. The aging potential of this celebrated white wine has been proven and demonstrated with tasting after tasting. This vintage is balanced and fresh with brimstone, stone fruit and creamy peach. With time, it will show more mineral nuances and additional aging sophistication.
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Wine Spectator
Rich and leesy, with a tang of salinity and finely knit acidity brightening the flavors of lemon meringue pie, poached white peach, brioche and chopped hazelnut. Medium-bodied, presenting a lasting, creamy finish. Chardonnay with Grechetto. Drink now through 2021.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Centered upon the lush Apennine Range in the center if the Italian peninsula, Umbria is one of the few completely landlocked regions in Italy. It’s star red grape variety, Sagrantino, finds its mecca around the striking, hilltop village of Montefalco. The resulting wine, Sagrantino di Montefalco, is an age-worthy, brawny, brambly red, bursting with jammy, blackberry fruit and earthy, pine forest aromas. By law this classified wine has to be aged over three years before it can be released from the winery and Sagrantino often needs a good 5-10 more years in bottle before it reaches its peak. Incidentally these wines often fall under the radar in the scene of high-end, age-begging, Italian reds, giving them an almost cult-classic appeal. They are undoubtedly worth the wait!
Rosso di Montefalco, on the other had, is composed mainly of Sangiovese and is a more fruit-driven, quaffable wine to enjoy while waiting for the Sagrantinos to mellow out.
Among its green mountains, perched upon a high cliff in the province of Terni, sits the town of Orvieto. Orvieto, the wine, is a blend of at least 60% Trebbiano in combination with Grechetto, with the possible addition of other local white varieties. Orvieto is the center of Umbria’s white wine production—and anchor of the region’s entire wine scene—producing over two thirds of Umbria’s wine. A great Orvieto will have clean aromas and flavors of green apple, melon and citrus, and have a crisp, mineral-dominant finish.