Nepomuceno and...

Nepomuceno is Cantrina’s flagship product. It is a wine that makes no allowances for compromise, just like the Bohemian clergyman from whom it takes its name and who is depicted by the River Chiese (a short distance from the Estate) in the altarpiece of the church at Cantrina.

This wine has obtained important accolades at the Italian Merlots Show at Aldeno with the 2001, 2003 and 2004 vintages; in fact, it won awards in the third, fifth and sixth editions of this Competition.

These prizes go to show that a terroir can find substantial expression in a wine when the human factor and vinification methods behind it are not banal, even in the case of a grape variety that is normally referred to as “international”.

Nepomuceno - to a slight extent in the 2004 vintage, but to an even greater degree in the 2005 - is no longer made solely from Merlot: It now benefits from the addition of Rebo and especially Marzemino (grapes grown on the Estate), and is bottled under the appellation “I.G.T. Benaco Bresciano Rosso” . With Nepomuceno, Cantrina has the specific aim of producing a wine with a unique and inimitable personality, which is not represented exclusively by the grape varieties and the terroir, but also – and especially by a precise choice of production philosophy, linked to the concept of “open-minded exercice de style“.

Nepomuceno is also a wine with a real story behind it, which is connected with its name and is certainly not lacking in coincidences.

In 2007, during the harvest, a Jesuit priest arrived at Cantrina with a small troupe from the national television company of the Czech Republic. Padre Miroslav Herold was making a film about the life of Saint John Nepomuceno and had discovered the existence in Italy of a wine actually called Nepomuceno, probably the only one in the world bearing that name.

After shooting, Padre Miroslav carried on with his tour through Italy and other European countries, looking for other signs of the saint’s presence and taking with him a few bottles of our wine.

On 16th May 2009, on the occasion of the celebrations for the two hundredth anniversary of the erecting of the statue of Saint John Nepomuceno in the piazza of Romentino (in the Province of Novara), the documentary and the Italian edition of the book devoted to the Saint were presented, together with our wine.

Cantrina appears in this film, as does Prince Karel (Jan Nepomuk) Schwarzenberg receiving from Padre Miroslav the magnum of Nepomuceno 2001 that the priest had brought with him. It is now our dream, as a consequence of this mystical, wine-related experience, to present our wine in Prague, and, who knows, maybe Nepomuceno might become the most significant and meaningful wine in the Czech Republic!