Oltretorrente

  • Colli Tortonesi, Piedmont, Italy
Oltretorrente

After several years working for more conventional wineries, Chiara Penati and her husband Michele Conoscente started Oltretorrente in 2010 with the purchase of 1.5 hectares of vines..  Both agronomists from Milan who had worked all over Italy, they had several ideas about where to create their own reality and decided on the sleepy village of Paderna, set in the hills of the Tortona region (Colli Tortonesi) in southeast Piedmont, where there are only 30 estates bottling wine.  The name Oltretorrente means “Beyond the Stream,” in reference to the Scrivia, a tributary of the Po River, but it could be interpreted as “Countercurrent.”  Today, the estate covers 7.5 hectares (7 are owned and 0.5 are rented and fully farmed). The vines range from 15 to 100 years old at altitudes up to 300 meters, with slopes so steep that when it rains too much, their small caterpillar tractor is useless and they have to do the vineyard work the old-fashioned way.  Current total production is 25-30,000 bottles, up considerably since 2018, when some new vineyards came on board. 

They farm their land organically, but use some biodynamic methods as well. Since they acquired the vineyards, they have worked to restore natural soil fertility by planting grass in soils that were hoed for many years; they did a thorough analysis of the soils of their 10 different parcels to determine which plants are the most beneficial to these sites.  They harvest the fruit from each of their parcels separately to preserve the characteristics of each.

In the cellar,  macerations and aging are not standardized and change depending on what the vintage gives them.  In general, however, for the white wines they put whole bunches into the pneumatic press instead of destemming before pressing; there is no skin maceration and malolactic is not necessarily a given. For the reds, they harvest late to ensure full ripeness, and long macerations follow. For both whites and reds, aging is always on the lees to increase the complexity and stability of wines in a natural way.

 

Image Producer PRODUCT Description Country / Region

DB3018-23
Organic
Oltretorrente Bianco Colli Tortonesi
2023
White Blend
Sourced from all of the estate's parcels, as each plot has at least some white grapes in it. Vineyards were planted between 1959 and 1999...
Italy

DB3015-22
Organic
Oltretorrente Timorasso Colli Tortonesi
2022
Timorasso
100% Timorasso from the north-facing vineyard parcels of Rampone and Simonelli (2 hectares total), planted between 1996 and 2016 at 300m on...
Italy

DB3016-20
Organic
Oltretorrente Barbera Superiore Colli Tortonesi
2020
Barbera
100% Barbera, harvested from 2 parcels (Gatti and Battorella) amounting to one hectare, planted between 1920 and 1960 on calcareous clay...
Italy

DB3017-22
Organic
Oltretorrente Rosso Colli Tortonesi
2022
Red blend
Sourced from all the estate's red grapes that are not directed towards the Barbera Superiore. Several parcels over 3 hectares are harvested...
Italy