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SommoClivo, Nebbiolo cru, extra fine wine, expression of a unique terroir: the morainic hills of the Lombard pre-Alps of Monte Rosa, for centuries a place of viticulture, abandoned due to the phylloxera epidemic of the late 1800s.

On the hill of San Quirico, the small eighteenth-century vineyard was replanted in 2000 by Alessio Fornasetti, who then completed the business with the construction of a new cellar, designed to vinify and refine a fine wine, SommoClivo.

The company nebbiolo cru total about 3 hectares, Guyot counter-espalier growing, density: 3,000 plants per hectare.

The Francigena toponym San Quirico, combined with the presence on the top of the hill of a 1878 panoramic tower, gave the name to the company and the cellar: Torre San Quirico.
The name of the SommoClivo wine comes from the Latin ... hanc turrim in summo clivo ..., this tower on the top of the hill, as the position of the tower is described in the marble slab on the access door.

The ideal climate, the 480 meters above sea level, the southern exposure, the regular ventilation, the cool nights are the value of this particular Prealpine environment.

The texture of the morainic soil is moderately coarse and allows excellent drainage through the Glacial Deposits accumulated above the rocky substrate in a fine sandy matrix.
The subacid Ph, the absence of carbonates, the richness of mineral salts are the components of our terroir, the ideal for the vine, a perfect profile to give a particular and unique character to the wine: SommoClivo is an elegant and surprising 100% Nebbiolo wine.

The story stems from Alessio Fornasetti's great passion for wine and his desire to get out of the mold of consolidated traditions, and put the Nebbiolo grape in the best conditions to express and reveal the very particular phenological and aromatic characteristics generated by the terroir.
And thus offer an unexpected sensory impression, and stimulate the search for a spectrum of combinations with the most up-to-date gastronomic proposals.

The approach chosen by Alessio Fornasetti in Torre San Quirico is to form the wine character of SommoClivo in the vineyard, paying assiduous attention to the development of the phenology of plants and foliage, rigorous control of the growth and ripening of the bunches.

Our crus offer grapes that develop fresh and fruity aromas in the wine, from cassis to raspberry, and tannins that gradually become harmonious, deep and complex over the long period of refinement.

The colors of the wine are precious and brilliant, with shades from ruby to garnet to accompany the long aging phases.

Prolonged tasting, deep and complex, harmonious and refined, increases awareness and the importance of tasting itself, to be discovered with the complicity of the slow passage of time.

These are the unique and distinctive qualities of the SommoClivo nebbiolo, the fundamental asset of our small but precious business.