Silvio Messana Bianco Vino da Tavola (Skin Contact) 2020

Silvio Messana Bianco Vino da Tavola – Biodynamic wine, short skin contact of a few days, clean, elegant profile, superb balance.  Silvio Messana Bianco shows how skin contact white is becoming more than just orange wine.  We understand that Silvio doesn’t have a lot of experience of making white wine.  So when he started, he thought he would be better at Orange wine.  The process is similar to making red.   Also, the white grapes he has are better for Orange, Trebbiano and Vernaccia.  The skin contact gives these fairly neutral grapes some character.

For this wine, they destem the grapes, then fermentation takes place for 14 days on the skins in a concrete tank.  They press the grapes and then store the wine in concreate tanks for 3 months before bottling. What a superb example of white wine with skin.  It is low abv of 11% makes it even better, for any one who is new to this category, it is perfect.

Silvio Messana with his wife Catalina took over the Montesecondo estate in 1999.

Originally created in the 1970's by his father who planted the vineyards, the grapes used to be sold in bulk by his mother who was running the estate after the death of her Silvio's father. Silvio soon started making wine and his very first vintage was produced in 2000. Surrounded by olive groves in Cerbaia val di Pesa. The 11.5 hectares of vineyards are planted on two types of soil: calcareous and clay soils with sandy areas which produce lush soft wines; and a limestone soil at 500m altitude, which produces crisper, leaner styles. Silvio mainly cultivates old vines (35 years old on average) of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, Colorino, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Everything is biodynamic, and they manage to obtain naturally low yields (30hl/ha) from the vigorous Sangiovese vines and great fruit that genuinely express their terroir.