La Monacesca

The Benedictine monks of the Farfense Order had carefully chosen their location before starting wine production over a thousand years ago in the beautiful and remote hills of the Marche. Today, on the mineral soils of the upper Esino valley near the Adriatic Sea, a fruity white wine of the extra class is growing, which is characterized by a pleasantly lively acidity. In the sixties, when Casimiro Cifola acquired the small church and the monastery built by the monks of Farfa, together with plots of land in the municipality of Matelica that had gone wild, and founded the winery La Monacesca, it did not take long for his newly planted Verdicchio vines to yield their first fruits. The founder, who died in 2012, also experienced how his estate became more and more famous over the years and contributed significantly to the reputation of the wine region Marken. Today, Casimiro's son Aldo runs the picturesquely situated, beautifully decorated company with great passion and rigour. The winegrower had joined his father's business in 1982 at a young age.

While the 84-hectare vineyard is four kilometres from the centre of the municipality of Matelica, the administrative and production site, with storage and bottling, is located in the municipality of Potenza Picena. La Monacesca's plots, surrounded by meadows, cornfields and oak woods, are well protected from the winds of the sea by the San Vicino massif, which is a natural habitat for ornamental gardens.

Together with his father, Aldo Cifola refined the cultivation methods and the vinification processes in the winery over the years. The Verdicchio has the lion's share in the grape variety index, followed only far behind by Chardonnay. The first production of Verdicchio di Matelica dates back to 1973. In order to improve the character of the zone as a place of origin for red grape varieties, Cifola decided in 1994 to cultivate Sangiovese Grosso and Merlot on an area of eight hectares.

In the magnificent monastery cellar the terroir-faithful plants age almost exclusively in steel tanks. The noble drops, limited to a few labels, are kept in a uniform style. They only reveal their character and minerality years after the elaborate hand-crafted grape harvest. La Monacesca's unmistakable wines are only sold if they meet the highest quality standards in terms of structure, complexity and ageing. SUPERIORE.DE