Castello della Sala - Antinori

The Sala Castle was built in 1350 by Angelo Monaldeschi della Vipera. It passed through several owners until its purchase in 1940 by the Marquis Niccolò Antinori. When Marquis Niccolò (father of the current honorary president Piero Antinori) decided to also produce white wines, he turned his attention to Umbria, where he purchased the Castello della Sala with its 29 farms and 483 hectares of fields and woods. Antinori improved the land which then included 52 hectares of olive groves and vineyards and restored the castle by refurbishing a reception hall and some rooms. It was the spring of 1979 when Renzo Cotarella arrived at Castello della Sala, a young agronomist who in less than ten years would create the estate's symbolic wines. At the castle, work immediately began on an ambitious varietal redevelopment project, aimed at obtaining white wines with greater personality than those produced in the Orvieto Classico area. We experiment with Chardonnay and deepen our knowledge of the interesting Grechetto. The search for a great wine that asserts itself in terms of character and personality becomes almost an obsession. After a series of disappointing vintages, it was the 1985 harvest that produced the first true Cervaro della Sala, by far one of the most well-known and appreciated Italian wines in the world.

Muffato della Sala is certainly one of the best-known Italian sweet wines, just as Cervaro della Sala has rightfully entered the Olympus of great white wines.