Monastero Suore Cistercensi 2024 'Ruscum' Bianco, Lazio IGP

Item Number: 22583

UPC: 0-811644010290

Country: Italy
Region: Lazio
Sub Region: Lazio
Appellation/AVA: Lazio IGP
Estate Grown Wine: Yes
Vintage: 2024
Grape(s): 45% Trebbiano / 35% Malvasia / 20% Verdicchio
Type: Wine - White
Bottle Size: 750 ml
Pack: 12
Closure: Cork
Alc by Vol(%): 11.5
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Soil Type: Volcanic

Wine Notes: An alternate lens into the nuns’ terroir, Ruscum comes from the same vineyards and the same harvest as Coenobium, but its juice spends 14 days in contact with the skins. If Coenobium is a wine of autumn, then Ruscum is its winter sibling—always richer and more substantial, though the degree of difference between the two changes markedly from vintage to vintage.

Winemaking Notes: Grapes spontaneously ferment on the skins for around 14 days in stainless steel and fiberglass tanks. The wine remains on its lees until assemblage prior to bottling. Malolactic fermentation occurs at its own pace. The wine is unfined and unfiltered (plate filtered if absolutely necessary). A small addition of sulfites is applied at harvest and at bottling.

Estate Notes: The wines of Monastero Suore Cistercensi are made by the Sisters of the Cistercian Order who live and work at their monastery in Vitorchiano, ninety minutes or so north of Rome in the Lazio district. Here, at this quiet religious outpost, 70 nuns organically work vineyards, orchards, and gardens. Under the guidance of consulting winemaker Giampiero Bea, they produce wines as honest, sympathetic, and gracious as they are. The "winery" is nothing more than a tool shed packed to the gills with old steel tanks, fiberglass containers of various sizes, and glass demijohns tucked here and there—proving yet again that it takes the barest minimum to produce a wine of character and truth.