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The Sassaia Difference
Sassaia vints tradition and pours progress.
Award winning wines
In 2021, Sassaia earned the prestigious Falstaff Award for second best white wine in Piedmont for Derthona Timorasso. The wine making style is an innovative twist on tradition which combines Burgundian best practices, Italian terroir and collaboration between Enrico, Pierre Naigeon and Walter Massa. Our Capriata d’Orba winery was redesigned and modernized to adopt Pierre Naigeon’s Burgundian style augmented with knowledge earned from UC Davis enology program.
Hand Harvest
Our first selection begins early morning, surrounded by cool temperatures, where trained harvesters choose only the best fruit for vinification.
Grapes arrive in small 6kg crates
We purposely choose small crates to avoid crushing berries which permits us to chill the fruit for extended skin contact in a temperature controlled environment for 24-48 hours prior to a second hand sorting. Historically, these crates are typically used for air dried wine styles.
Hand Sorting
After a complete inspection, only the best grapes make the final selection. We do not use any corkscrew system to push grapes into the press. Grapes are hand introduced to the press to avoid breaking stems and crushing seeds.
Barrel fermentation
After soft pressing and cold decanting, the barrel fermentations begin in limited production Burgundian Chassin barrels sourced from the Jupilles forest.
Rack/bottle on the moon cycle
We move the wine during the moon cycle to avoid disturbing the lees resulting in clear wine without fining.
Minimalist Intervention
We practice minimalist intervention which is timed and dosed with technology. The use of satellite photography helps us follow vineyard vigor and time harvests. Digital densimeter allows for accurate and timely monitoring of our fermentations. Digital microscope technology, combined with artificial intelligence, enables us to monitor yeast and fermentation vitality which helps us time any necessary feedings with minimal nutrients. Our
solar powered temperature controlled barrel rooms allow us to maintain proper humidity and temperature for stress free low temperature fermentations.
Hyper attention to hygiene
We create a clean and healthy environment for both
fermentation and aging of wines by combining best practices with the latest technology. We clean with filtered water, free of chlorine and bromine, to reduce cork taint risk. We employ ozinated water to sanitize our barrels which removes any traces of volatile acidity and brett. We also use vectoclean (negative oxygen) to remove mold, bacteria and yeast in our winemaking
facility.
