Cervaro della Sala
⏳ Drinking Window
2022 - 2030
🍷 Vintage Profile
The 2020 growing season began with a mild, dry winter followed by a brief cold snap in late March that caused no significant damage to early-budding Chardonnay. Spring and early summer brought moderate temperatures and well-timed rainfall, promoting steady canopy development before high diurnal shifts in August preserved essential malic acidity while allowing Grechetto to achieve full phenolic maturity. Harvest commenced in late August under dry conditions, yielding fruit with pristine aromatic clarity, vibrant mineral tension, and balanced alcohol. Entering its optimal drinking window in 2026, the 2020 vintage possesses the structural depth and fresh acidity to evolve gracefully through 2032.
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Roasted chicken, creamy mushroom risotto, grilled sea bass
✨ Technical Specifications
The 2020 Cervaro della Sala is a white wine from the Umbria IGT appellation, produced at the Castello della Sala estate. The blend consists of approximately 90% Chardonnay and 10% Grechetto. The vineyards are situated at elevations between 220 and 470 meters on soils composed of calcareous clay and pliocene fossils. For the vinification, the Chardonnay underwent skin contact at low temperatures followed by fermentation and five months of aging on the lees in French oak barriques, where it completed malolactic fermentation. The Grechetto was fermented separately in stainless steel. The 2020 vintage was marked by a mild winter, a warm spring, and a hot summer with significant diurnal temperature variations, yielding balanced acidity and concentrated fruit profiles.
🍾 About the Producer
Marchesi Antinori is one of the world's most storied winemaking dynasties, tracing its commercial viticultural heritage to 1385 when Giovanni di Piero Antinori matriculated into Florence's Arte dei Vinattieri. Spanning twenty-six generations, the family revolutionized modern Italian viticulture under Marchese Piero Antinori and legendary enologist Giacomo Tachis, catalyzing the Super Tuscan revolution with the pioneering release of Tignanello in 1971. Antinori commands an unrivaled tapestry of microclimates across Central Italy, encompassing the galestro and albarese marls of Chianti Classico at Tenuta Tignanello and Badia a Passignano, the maritime gravels of Bolgheri at Guado al Tasso, and the fossiliferous clay-limestone soils of Umbria at Castello della Sala. In the cellar, CEO and chief enologist Renzo Cotarella orchestrates a balance of precision, clonal selection, and judicious French oak barrique maturation. Antinori's benchmark wines—including the Sangiovese-driven Tignanello, the Cabernet-dominated Solaia, and the benchmark Umbrian Chardonnay blend Cervaro della Sala—stand as definitive monuments of Italian winemaking refinement.