Tenuta Santa Caterina

The story

The Name That Stayed

For years, the Nebbiolo ageing in Tenuta Santa Caterina's underground cellars could not be labelled as such. Italian wine regulations barred Monferrato producers from putting the word Nebbiolo on a bottle, regardless of what grew in the vineyard or what sat in the barrel. Alleva named the wine Illegale: not because it broke any law, but because the law itself was the whole point. A Nebbiolo that could not be called Nebbiolo, aged seventeen metres underground in cellars older than the regulation that forbade the name. When Italian authorities lifted the restriction in 2019 and Monferrato producers were finally free to print the grape's name on the label, the wine kept the one it had been given under the old rules. The name had done its work too well to change.

From the atlas

Tenuta Santa Caterina

At A Glance

The Producer

Tenuta Santa Caterina sits in Grazzano Badoglio, a village on the Colli Divini hills in the Asti province of Monferrato, a large and varied Piedmont wine zone east of the Langhe. The property was first recorded as an agricultural farm in 1737. It lay dormant for decades before Guido Carlo Alleva returned to his birthplace in the 2000s, resumed his family's winegrowing tradition, and recovered more than twenty hectares of abandoned vineyard.

Luciana Biondo is the winemaker. Together, Biondo and Alleva have built a range from Monferrato's indigenous varieties, Grignolino, Freisa, Barbera, and Nebbiolo, alongside Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, all grown on estate land. The estate's argument is simple: every grape in the bottle comes from their own vineyards, farmed to their own standards, aged in cellars that predate the current generation by centuries.

Place

Monferrato is a broad Piedmont region of rolling hills between the Tanaro and Po rivers, south and east of the Langhe. Grazzano Badoglio, where Tenuta Santa Caterina farms, falls within the Asti province portion of Monferrato. The climate is continental, with warm summers and cold winters, and the soils shift between limestone, clay, and sand across the estate's parcels.

Nebbiolo grown in Monferrato carries a different character from the grape as it appears in Barolo or Barbaresco, which are cultivated on the Alba-centred Langhe hills to the west. Monferrato Nebbiolo is not subject to the tight appellation rules that govern those two zones. Before 2019, local regulations actively prevented producers from putting the word Nebbiolo on a Monferrato label at all. That regulatory peculiarity shaped how the estate named its flagship wine.

Soil And Site

The Rombi vineyard, source of Illegale, faces south to southwest over limestone-rich soils. The estate connects that limestone to two things: aromatic fragrance in the wine and the capacity to age. Limestone drains freely, keeps vine stress measured, and tends to preserve acidity through the growing season, which translates into wines with more definition on the palate and a longer arc in the glass.

No parcel-level data for the estate's other vineyards, including elevations, vine ages, or planting densities, is available from verified sources.

Story

When Guido Carlo Alleva came back to Grazzano Badoglio in the 2000s, the estate recorded in 1737 had not been worked as a serious wine property for a long time. He recovered more than twenty hectares of vineyard, replanted Monferrato's native varieties, and farmed using symbiotic-agriculture principles: organic fertilisers, microbiological techniques, no synthetic herbicides.

The decision to build around Nebbiolo was pointed. Monferrato is Barbera and Grignolino country in the popular imagination. Planting Nebbiolo on the limestone Rombi parcel and ageing it underground in the estate's old infernotto cellars was a deliberate claim that Monferrato could produce a serious red from a grape most buyers associate with the Langhe. The name Illegale, chosen before the appellation rules changed, made that argument with some irony intact.

Vineyards And Cellar

Vineyard work across the estate follows the same organic programme: organic fertilisers, mechanical weed control, green harvesting to reduce crop load and concentrate the remaining fruit, leaf stripping to improve air circulation and phenolic development, and hand-picking for small parcels. The aim is to arrive at the cellar with ripe, clean grapes without synthetic intervention at any stage.

Fermentation uses indigenous yeasts only, which means slower, less predictable ferments but a closer relationship between the vineyard's microbial character and the finished wine. The estate ages wines in both French oak barriques and large Slavonian oak botti. The combination allows the winemaking team to choose the degree of oak influence by vessel: barriques for wines that benefit from tighter grain and more exchange with the wood, the large botti for wines where the oak role is more neutral and the fruit and tannin are the primary signals.

All of this happens seventeen metres underground, in the estate's infernotto cellars. The constant temperature and humidity at that depth make the cellars naturally suited to slow, even ageing. The infernotto network in this part of Monferrato is now part of the area's UNESCO World Heritage designation.

Wines

The range covers six varieties. Grignolino, Freisa, and Barbera are the three native Piedmont reds alongside Nebbiolo. Grignolino is a pale, high-acid, light-tannic red with bitter almond and rose hip on the finish; it is a Monferrato speciality that rarely travels far from the region. Freisa, also native to Piedmont, produces a darker, more structured wine with pronounced tannin and sour cherry. Barbera, the workhorse of Asti and Alba, tends toward deep colour, low tannin, and bright acidity and is food-friendly at almost any age.

Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc complete the estate range. Both varieties have a long enough history in the Monferrato hills to count as established rather than experimental.

Illegale is the Nebbiolo from the Rombi vineyard. It ferments with indigenous yeasts, matures for twelve months in 30-hectolitre Slavonian oak botti, then rests a further six months in bottle before release. The large oak format keeps the oak contribution quiet, and the extended bottle time rounds the tannin edges that Nebbiolo carries from the vine. The wine is built for medium-term ageing rather than immediate drinking.

In The Glass

Illegale opens with the characteristic Nebbiolo aromatic register: dried rose, tar, a suggestion of orange peel and dried herb that the limestone in the Rombi vineyard lifts into something finer than the same grape grown on heavier clay. The palate is firm, with Nebbiolo's signature tannin arriving mid-mouth, fine-grained from the twelve months in large botti rather than compressed by small-barrel oak. Acidity is present throughout, running underneath the fruit and keeping the mid-palate from feeling heavy. The finish is long and drying, with grip that signals several more years of development in the bottle rather than immediate softness.

The Barbera from the same estate carries a contrasting tone: darker fruit, much lower tannin, and a sharper acid line, making it easier to drink young. The Grignolino is lighter in colour and body, with a bitter, mineral finish that suits the variety's traditional food-pairing role in Piedmont. Each wine reflects the same organic farming and indigenous-yeast approach, so a thread of freshness runs through the range even when the grape varieties are pulling in different structural directions.

A Bottle To Understand It

Begin with Illegale. It is a Nebbiolo from the south-facing Rombi vineyard, fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged for twelve months in large Slavonian botti, and rested for six months in bottle before release. The limestone soils give the wine aromatic lift; the large-format oak leaves the grape's character in front. In the glass the tannin is firm and drying, the acidity keeps the fruit from feeling flat, and the finish has the grip that Nebbiolo needs to develop over time. It is not a wine for immediate softness, but it is clear and well-framed from the first pour, and it communicates what this estate is farming and why the Rombi parcel matters.

Anecdote

For years, the wine sitting in Tenuta Santa Caterina's underground cellars could not be called what it was. Italian wine law barred Monferrato producers from putting the name Nebbiolo on a label, even when the grape accounted for every vine in the vineyard and every drop in the barrel. Alleva named the wine Illegale: not because it broke a law, but because the law itself was the point. A Nebbiolo that could not be called Nebbiolo, aged seventeen metres underground in cellars older than the regulation that forbade the name, called Illegale and sold as such. When Italian authorities lifted the restriction in 2019 and Monferrato producers were finally free to print the grape's name, the wine kept the one it had been given under the old rules. The name had done its job too well to change.

Final Word

Tenuta Santa Caterina is a Monferrato estate with a long paper trail and a recent second life. The 1737 registration is a date, not a credential; what Alleva and Biondo have built since the 2000s is a working argument for the zone's capacity to produce native varieties at serious depth. The Illegale is the clearest version of that argument in the glass.

Sources

• https://www.tenuta-santa-caterina.it/en/the-estate
• https://www.tenuta-santa-caterina.it/en
• https://monferace.it/en/azienda/tenuta-santa-caterina/
• https://uvaimports.com/italy/tenuta-santa-caterina/
• https://www.tenuta-santa-caterina.it/en/wine/illegale
• https://uvaimports.com/italy/tenuta-santa-caterina-wines/