Serradenari

The first key to the discovery of Serradenari is in its name.

Medieval peasants took refuge here from the Black Death, hiding their coins at the highest point of the land of Barolo, swept by the winds coming down the mountains. The altitude of Serradenari explains a lot about it and its wines.

Piemonte (Piedmont or foothill) is the other name that best reveals itself at Serradenari. The view from here spans everything that lies at the foot of the mountains, from the Maritime Alps to Mount Rosa and Mount Cervino (the Matterhorn). But beware: Millions of years ago, Serradenari was just the summit of a big island in the water. It was the summit of the Langhe and of Monferrato from which it was possible to see an immense body of water, the ‘Gulf of Po,’ which then disappeared millions of years later.

That’s why this small patch of land contains a perfect mosaic of the geology of the Langhe.

Only a drop of 100 meters separates the rocky conglomerates of La Morra at its highest point from the marlstones of Sant’Agata at its lowest, resembling almost a beach filled with fossils with elegant, detailed geometries. The more one digs at Serradenari, the more it reveals worlds and geological eras from remote times, which are reflected today in the wines that this land yields, as well as in its other product: the mysterious truffle that contains the territory’s deepest minerals and which grows in the shadows of its arboreal patrimony whose biodiversity and historic woods stretch for acres here at Serradenari, while elsewhere in the Langhe woods risk becoming but a distant memory.