Why it matters
The producer
San Silvestro is a family winery in Novello, a village sitting inside the Barolo denomination in the Langhe hills of Piemonte. The Sartirano family has been making and selling wine in the Langhe since 1871, and cousins Paolo and Guido Sartirano now run the business across four generations of family involvement. What gives the house its particular shape is not a single vineyard or one landmark bottle but a deliberate accumulation of territory: three estates gathered over two decades, with vineyards in Barolo, Novello, and Monforte d'Alba, and a range that moves from young, fresh Piemonte DOC bottles through an organic-labelled tier to Barolo and a dried-grape Barbera that sits well outside regional convention.
The company's operational centre is Tenuta Ghercina, acquired in 2002, where the Sartiranos built a new 5,000-square-metre cellar into the hillside so that a working vineyard sits on its roof. That physical detail is a good introduction to how the house thinks: the land comes first, and the cellar fits around it.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Novello is a small commune in the southern Langhe, part of the eleven-village Barolo DOCG zone. At this latitude, Nebbiolo grown on the calcareous Helvetian soils of the Barolo hills ripens to a depth that demands long ageing, and the appellation rules reflect that: Barolo must spend a minimum of 38 months before release, with at least 18 in oak. Novello sits on the southwestern edge of the zone, where the soils carry more sand and the wines tend toward earlier-drinking character relative to the Serralunga d'Alba or Castiglione Falletto side.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
San Silvestro owns seven hectares of vineyards and buys grapes from cooperating growers across Piemonte. The house farms Nebbiolo for Barolo and grows Barbera, Dolcetto, Grignolino, Arneis, Cortese, Moscato, Favorita, and Nas-cëtta across its holdings. Favorita and Nas-cëtta are two locally adapted white varieties tied specifically to Novello, rarely seen in producer portfolios elsewhere in the Langhe. Their inclusion is a deliberate choice to hold on to what the village grows rather than replanting with more commercially familiar varieties.
The underground cellar at Ghercina was designed to use gravity and temperature stability rather than refrigeration to manage fermentation and ageing. Wood-ageing capacity for Barolo and the Appassimento sits below ground, while the stainless-steel tanks used for Ottone I Barbera, Gavi Fossili, and the white wines are in the cooled upper sections. The partly subterranean layout keeps the cellar temperature stable without mechanical intervention, and the vineyard above the roof continues to produce.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range divides into four tiers. At the base are young, unoaked Piemonte DOC bottles: the Ottone I Barbera, stainless-steel fermented and bottled young for everyday drinking, delivers violet, tart cherry, and the firm natural acidity Barbera carries from the Langhe clay soils. Dolcetto and Grignolino appear at this level too, fresh and low in tannin respectively.
The organic-labelled tier, covering Piemonte Rosso, Piemonte Barbera, Piemonte Cortese, and Piemonte Bianco, sits above the DOC entry bottles and signals a farming commitment without a change in style register. Barolo, made from Nebbiolo at Ghercina and Costa di Bussia, is the apex of the red range: long maceration on Helvetian soils, minimum oak ageing, firm dry tannin, dried cherry, tar, and rose that open over a decade or more in bottle.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Gavi del Comune di Gavi Fossili. It is 100% Cortese from marl and fossil-bearing soils near Gavi, raised in stainless steel, and made without oak or residual sweetness. The nose is floral and fresh, white peach and lemon blossom with a faint mineral note; the palate is light-bodied, firmly acidic, and finishes with a chalky mineral edge and a slight saline lift. It is not a complicated wine. It is a very clean, appellation-specific white that demonstrates what Cortese from a geologically precise site can do when the winemaker leaves it alone.