Monastero Suore Cistercensi - Coenobium Bianco 2024
30 miles north of Rome, in the town of Vitiorchiano, there is an order of nuns producing some intriguing, natural wine under the guidance of one of Italy’s most prominent low-intervention producers, Giampiero Bea. He started to work with the nuns after being moved by the frankness of the white wine that the sisters were producing with almost no technology. In a region rife with soulless, highly controlled, highly sulfured beverages posing as white wines, here was a wine of real character, an unadorned expression of healthy grapes grown in fascinating volcanic soil.
The Sisters are part of the larger Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Roman Catholic religious order of monasteries of monks and nuns with origins tracing back to 1098. They are self-sustaining communities, producing not only wine but cheese, beer, spirits, and sweets to make their living while striving to improve viticulture, recipes, and to preserve the land.
Every year these approximately eighty women produce these wines from their own vineyards and gardens, farmed sustainably, harvested without machinery, fermented with only naturally occurring yeasts, and bottled without fining or filtration.
The results are extraordinary, with their whites being rich, complex wines with a slightly oxidative quality that are, nevertheless, very food-friendly. They also make a rosso with extremely limited availability.
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30 miles north of Rome, in the town of Vitiorchiano, there is an order of nuns producing some intriguing, natural wine under the guidance of one of Italy’s most prominent low-intervention producers, Giampiero Bea. He started to work with the nuns after being moved by the frankness of the white wine that the sisters were producing with almost no technology. In a region rife with soulless, highly controlled, highly sulfured beverages posing as white wines, here was a wine of real character, an unadorned expression of healthy grapes grown in fascinating volcanic soil.
The Sisters are part of the larger Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Roman Catholic religious order of monasteries of monks and nuns with origins tracing back to 1098. They are self-sustaining communities, producing not only wine but cheese, beer, spirits, and sweets to make their living while striving to improve viticulture, recipes, and to preserve the land.
Every year these approximately eighty women produce these wines from their own vineyards and gardens, farmed sustainably, harvested without machinery, fermented with only naturally occurring yeasts, and bottled without fining or filtration.
The results are extraordinary, with their whites being rich, complex wines with a slightly oxidative quality that are, nevertheless, very food-friendly. They also make a rosso with extremely limited availability.
