Tag Archives: harvest
Moving forward with the Nebbiolo!
About fifteen days ago, we started harvesting the tips of the Nebbiolo grape bunches and now we are officially starting the second round of Nebbiolo harvesting, the longest and most complicated round. Take a look at the video and you will see what I mean….
+10 °C on the morning of 19 September, Nebbiolo grapes rejoice!
After a month of high temperatures, cool air has finally arrived from the North Sea. I am happy because our Nebbiolo grapes have a real need for cool, and moreover the weather predictions are ensuring us that the sun will be a protagonist. Harvesting the Nebbiolo with the dew in the morning and the warm sun at noon puts me at ease and in a certain way reassures me. Soon we will start the second harvest of Nebbiolo grapes, which is the most difficult and complicated, but which allows us to produce a wine of great aromatic and tannic complexity. … Continua
A Blessed Rain
Over the past few days we have been hearing a lot of different expressions here in Langa: manna from heaven, blessed rain, rain made-to-order, etc…. I would simply put it: this rain is such a relief! After more than a month durung which our land had not seen a drop of water, it finally arrived this weekend. Let me report a statistic from the Italian meteorological society: summer 2011 was on the whole one of the coolest in the last ten years, with weather that was often unstable and rainy in June and July, but with scorching heat in the … Continua
And now to the winemaking cellar!
I am happy to have waited so long to harvest the last Nebbiolo vineyard. The analytical data support this decision, but now we must pass from theory to practice. Our work in the winemaking cellar must be flawless, so that we do not ruin the extraordinary 2010 vintage – especially the Nebbiolo. Temperature, maceration time, wood variety, oxidation and reduction, decanting and a little bit of luck will make all the difference. Follow me – the season of winemaking and its secrets has only just begun.
The Dolcetto Harvest
We have finished the Dolcetto harvest, and with this we have completed the harvest of the most problematic and delicate grape variety. I am pleased to have succeeded in bringing these grapes to a good level of maturation. In the last two weeks, the Dolcetto grapes became, according to their appearance, ready – with a few bunches even beginning to go past their prime. However, both the chemical analysis and our tasting told us that in spite of appearances, the grapes had not yet reached the apex of maturation. We had to choose to either harvest the grapes immediately, while … Continua
Sampling the Nebbiolo grapes
Today I am in the vineyard with Sergio Molino, our viticulture consultant and analyst, who will sample grapes in various places on the bunch and in different areas of the vineyard. After having analyzed them, we will estimate a possible date for harvesting. Choosing the right day is important and difficult, most of all because it is necessary to keep track of variations in temperature, which plays a fundamental role. In addition to the analytical method there is an empirical method. It is very simple but very useful, consisting in chewing the grapes at length, evaluating the consistency of the … Continua
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