The hill and the name

Annamaria Clementi Zanella bought a modest house in the hills of Erbusco, two hectares among oak and chestnut woods, and that house became Ca' del Bosco. Her son Maurizio Zanella is president. The estate kept its own name when it joined the Santa Margherita group.

The lawn in front of you holds the other habit of the place. Purple irises fill the foreground, a pale stone figure sits on a rough block at the crest, and the mowing leaves stripes across the grass. Art has been part of these grounds for years. The figure is that habit, out in the open.

The vineyard this bottle honors is the Tesa, about half a hectare, the first the estate planted at 10,000 vines to the hectare, tucked beside those same woods. With the 2019 harvest the Chardonnay took the name Selva della Tesa, so the slope would be what you read on the label.

Eight vineyards, one crate

The crate already carries the house. Pale green bunches sit against an orange wall, the name is embossed on the side, and a yellow lip runs along the top. Soft vineyard rows sit behind it. This is how the fruit leaves the vine, still in the bunch, in a small case.

The 2019 harvest began on 27 August. June had been dry, August brought the rain that saved the crop, and the bunches came in smaller and looser. The fruit is Chardonnay from eight vineyards in Erbusco, Passirano, and Provaglio d'Iseo, vines that average 35 years.

Each bunch is looked at, chilled, and sent through the berry spa. Three soaking vats and a drying tunnel wash the fruit before it ever meets the press. That wash is the door into the cellar.

Nine months on the lees

A hand in a dark sleeve turns a metal tool into the head of the cask. A second hand rests on the stave, a pale bung waits beside the hole, and a row of barrels stands behind. This is the room where the Tesa fruit finishes.

The press runs without oxygen. Only the first fraction goes into small oak casks built from wood seasoned for three years. The wine stays on its lees for nine more months. Malolactic finishes in that time, and the lees are stirred every week so the nose and the palate stay in step.

Stefano Capelli is the estate enologist, and this is the elevage he keeps for the wine. The parcels are blended, then the wine is bottled by gravity on 1 July 2020. It rests in bottle for 3 years and 6 months. Alcohol at bottling is 13.4%. Each bottle carries its own mark.

Lemon, then the roast

The estate sheet names no plate. Sebino is lake country, and this glass has oak and lees enough for a fish and then a roast.

Trout with lemon is the lighter of the two, skin on, the citrus against the oak. Roast chicken with thyme is the richer one, the bird meeting a Chardonnay that spent those nine months on its lees.