Sylla Sebaste

Foundation under Tersilla Sebaste

Sylla Sebaste was founded in 1985 at Vergne, in the municipality of Barolo, through the initiative of Tersilla Sebaste. The cellar occupies the summit of San Pietro delle Viole, beside the fourteenth-century chapel whose silhouette later became the estate’s emblem.

Acquisition by the Merlo family

In 2000, after 13 years in the electronics industry, Fabrizio Merlo encountered the opportunity to acquire a small Barolo winery. The Merlo family took control at the beginning of the 2000s. Fabrizio entered wine from outside the sector and describes the ensuing years as a period of sustained work, risk and study, encompassing everything from vineyard management and cellar operations to marketing. His uncle, an experienced winemaker, helped teach him the fundamentals of the profession.

The vineyards were in a neglected condition when the family assumed control. Restoring them and returning the rows to productive health became the first priority in a broader effort to raise quality. This renewal began in the vineyards and extended to the production facilities and equipment.

The 2004 cellar expansion

The renovation culminated in 2004 with an enlargement of the winery. New processing and maturation areas were excavated entirely underground to limit their effect on the surrounding landscape. Building into the hill also stabilized cellar conditions by minimizing seasonal temperature variation. The project expanded the areas devoted to bottling, packaging and storage during bottle maturation.

Fermentation facilities were equipped with large temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks and automated cap-management systems. Maturation continued to emphasize large oak vessels, while the underground ageing cellar provided more stable conditions for wine conservation. Separate adjacent areas accommodated bottling and subsequent bottle ageing.

Development of the named Barolo sites

Bussia remained the estate’s historical named Barolo. Sylla Sebaste holds an approximately 3 ha extension of Bussia within the municipality of Barolo and describes itself as the only producer working this particular appendix of the larger cru.

The estate began vinifying Bricco delle Viole as a separate cru with the 2012 vintage. That inaugural vintage was scheduled for release in 2016 and received an artistic label by Pierflavio Gallina. The label celebrated the UNESCO recognition of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato and depicted the Castello di Barolo. Fabrizio Merlo presented Bricco delle Viole as a wine reserved for the best vintages. The name of the MGA traces back to an earlier Sylla Sebaste wine blending Barbera and Nebbiolo; that wine inspired the name of a street in Vergne and subsequently the subarea itself.

San Pietro (delle Viole), another Nebbiolo holding in the municipality of Barolo, was first vinified separately in 2013, with market release planned for 2017.

Family continuity and present scale

By 2016, Fabrizio’s son Edoardo was already receiving visitors and presenting the cru vineyards. At the time he was 18 and in his first year at university, studying literature; his younger brother was pursuing oenology. The estate remains a small family-run operation, with 7 ha of owned vineyards and annual production of approximately 70,000 bottles.

Setting

The winery stands in the hamlet of Vergne, on the ridge running from Novello toward La Morra and at the summit of San Pietro delle Viole. From the hill, the landscape opens almost completely around the cellar: Barolo lies nearby and below, while Serralunga and Grinzane are visible in the distance. Castello della Volta, commissioned by Manfredo di Saluzzo in the twelfth century, stands opposite. The fourteenth-century chapel of San Pietro delle Viole rises beside the winery.

The estate’s Nebbiolo vineyards occupy three Barolo MGAs that differ in geology, altitude and exposure.

Bussia

The Bussia holding is the lower, outermost extension of the well-known Monforte d’Alba cru into the municipality of Barolo. It lies at 250–300 m, with exposures described for the microarea as ranging from southwest to west; the current vineyard record gives the estate parcel a southeast exposure. Its medium-textured soils are formed principally by the terminal outcrops of the Arenarie di Diano: compact, stratified sands cemented by calcium carbonate, with superficial sandy layers. The lowest part also contains a smaller calcareous-clay component associated with the Marne di Sant’Agata.

Bricco delle Viole

Bricco delle Viole occupies a higher Tortonian formation at 400–450 m. Its marly soils derive from the fossil-bearing Marne di Sant’Agata and contain limestone and clay in nearly equal proportions, interrupted by occasional sandy bands. Exposures across the area range from south to southeast; the documented estate parcel faces south. The combination is associated with a cru of comparatively lighter structure and pronounced aromatic richness.

San Pietro (delle Viole)

San Pietro (delle Viole) lies at 370–420 m on an east-facing slope. Its texture remains predominantly marly, based on the Marne di Sant’Agata, with a partial sandy component.

Restoring the vineyards

When the Merlo family assumed control, the vineyards had been left in a neglected state. Restoring the rows and returning the vines to productive health was the first phase of the estate’s renewal. The vineyard is treated as both the basis of wine quality and the place where responsibilities toward consumers, workers and the natural environment take practical form.

Sustainable rather than certified-organic farming

Agronomist Franco Domenico defines the approach as sustainable and minimally invasive rather than wholly organic. Synthetic chemistry is reduced through alternative products, natural methods and electronic weather stations installed in the vineyards. These stations monitor atmospheric parameters and help determine whether treatment is genuinely necessary.

The estate does not claim that chemistry can always be eliminated. The difficult, rainy 2014 season is used to explain this position: organic growers could require 25–30 copper-and-sulphur applications, despite those materials being natural and permitted under organic rules. Sylla Sebaste’s stated objective is therefore to minimize the environmental and product impact of treatments while retaining the option of a targeted synthetic intervention when required for crop or consumer protection.

Soil management and green manure

Herbicides had been abandoned for four years when the vineyard account was written. Vineyard floors are managed with green manure: legumes and grasses are sown, cut at flowering and incorporated into the soil. This layer of biological material replaces long-term reliance on chemical fertilizers, which are considered capable of tiring and impoverishing the soil. Legumes are particularly valued because bacteria around their roots fix nitrogen and retain it in the soil, supporting fertility.

Pest and disease control

Pesticide and insecticide use is limited. Grape moth and European grapevine moth are controlled through mating disruption. Female-pheromone dispensers—described as a 20:80 mixture for the two moths—are tied to vines, usually around vineyard perimeters, at approximately 600 dispensers per hectare. The pheromone signal prevents males from locating females and interrupts reproduction. This removes the corresponding chemical treatment and avoids collateral harm to non-damaging Lepidoptera. Sylla Sebaste identifies itself as an early local adopter of the technique.

Systemic treatments are used at flowering against oidium, downy mildew and botrytis. Treatment against Scaphoideus titanus, the insect vector of flavescence dorée, is compulsory because the disease is subject to quarantine in Italy.

Pruning and canopy work

Winter pruning is severe on young vines and lighter on old vines, where as many as 12 buds may be retained. Suckering begins in April, removing shoots emerging directly from old wood at the base of the trunk because they consume energy without carrying fruit. The shoots are then positioned along support wires and posts.

Hedging follows, cutting the terminal tips of shoots and laterals to restrain excessive vegetative growth and encourage young foliage. Lateral-shoot removal is the final principal canopy operation. Its intensity changes with the vine’s exposure and vigour, and the work is generally completed by the end of June.

Yield control and harvest selection

Green harvesting takes place after veraison. Inferior bunches are removed so that the vine can direct its energy and nutrients toward fully ripening the retained fruit. Rows intended for cru Barolo may be reduced to only five or six bunches per vine, with a yield of 50 quintals per hectare, equivalent to 5 t/ha.

As ripening progresses, grape pH and sugar content are sampled. Analytical readings guide the decision, but the final harvest date is determined by tasting both berries and seeds. Harvest is manual into crates. Selection begins in the vineyard, where the best bunches are picked and inferior fruit is left on the vine. On arrival at the cellar, the grapes undergo a second selection on a vibrating conveyor.

Cellar design and equipment

The production and ageing facilities were structurally and technically renovated, with the principal expansion completed in 2004. New processing and maturation rooms were built underground to reduce visual and environmental impact and to use the hill’s thermal stability. The design minimizes seasonal temperature variation and provides dedicated space for bottling, packaging and bottle maturation.

Fermentation takes place in large stainless-steel tanks equipped for temperature control and automated cap management. The maturation cellar contains large wooden vats, casks and smaller barrels. The estate maintains a preference for large oak vessels while using modern monitoring and cellar equipment.

Reception and alcoholic fermentation

Hand-harvested grapes arrive in crates after an initial bunch selection in the vineyard and pass across a vibrating sorting conveyor for a second selection. They are destemmed, separating berries from the non-berry parts of the bunch, and then crushed. The processed fruit enters temperature-regulated fermenters maintained around 28 °C for the general red-wine protocol.

Alcoholic fermentation is assisted by selected yeasts. Extraction is managed through pumping over: the cap of skins rising to the top of the tank is repeatedly irrigated with must drawn from below, maintaining contact between solid and liquid fractions and extracting colour, aroma and tannin.

Fermentation length varies by variety. Thin-skinned Dolcetto and Barbera generally ferment for approximately three to four days, while Nebbiolo—and especially Nebbiolo destined for Barolo—remains in fermentation for roughly seven to ten days. Changing harvest temperatures have altered cellar practice: grapes that once required slight warming to initiate fermentation increasingly require cooling because they arrive too warm.

Draining, pressing and clarification by racking

After alcoholic fermentation, the skins are separated from the new wine and transferred to modern presses. Free-run liquid is reunited with the main wine. The more solid-rich press fraction is allowed to settle until it becomes clearer.

Racking then moves the wine from tank to tank at least once a week. Repeated settling and transfer remove residual solids that could otherwise generate off-odours. Racking also introduces air, supplying oxygen that can reactivate yeast activity and support continued evolution. This post-fermentation phase lasts approximately three to five months. Its duration depends on wine type and vintage conditions; difficult, wet years require longer settling because more solid material must be eliminated.

Maturation and bottling

Young wines, including Dolcetto, Arneis and other whites, are normally bottled in February or March while ambient temperatures remain low. Wines intended for ageing are transferred to wood during the warmer months of June and July. Timing is based on external temperature rather than lunar phases.

Barolo is generally matured for three years in wood, then bottled and held for a further six to eight months before release. The cellar also uses large oak vats, casks and small barrels according to the wine.

For Bricco delle Viole, the documented cru protocol begins with cold skin maceration. One account specifies 3–4 days at 5 °C followed by approximately 10 days of alcoholic fermentation under reductive conditions and free temperature movement, then maturation for three and a half years in 25 hl casks. The current technical record specifies five days of cryomaceration at −5 °C, followed by natural fermentation in stainless steel at 28 °C for 15 days. Malolactic fermentation is completed in stainless steel with skins and seeds under a submerged cap and computer-controlled daily pumping over at 18–20 °C. Maturation uses large, medium-toast oak vessels, combining new and second-use wood, with 30% new barrels, 36 months in wood and at least 15 months in bottle.

Appellation controls

During winter, control commissions conduct chemical and sensory analyses to verify compliance with each denomination’s rules. Wine passing both examinations receives its DOC or DOCG designation; Nebbiolo intended for Barolo formally becomes Barolo DOCG. Failure of one of the examinations twice results in declassification to table wine.