Fall 2018
September has come! It’s harvest time!
While summer is quietly saying goodbye, grapes are ripe for harvest, at last!
It is an intense, delicate and exciting moment, belonging to a long production cycle; a magical ritual that repeats itself every year. This 2018 vintage was marked by a complex running since the beginning: winter was harsh with lowest temperatures reaching -10,5°C. Even snow was back and, within a couple of days, made up a water supply that plants could recycle in the warmest days of summer.
In spring we had constant rainfall starting from April until the beginning of summer, by turns with some sunny days in the second half of May.
June was marked by very strong afternoon storms. The repeated rainfall and the heavy humidity unfortunately created the optimum conditions for the growth of grape downy mildew, which was excellently controlled, but caused some losses of grapes all the same. Anyway, this vintage has been totally different from the 2017 one (torrid and dry), when the real problem was the water stock and the water stress suffered by vines.
In July we had a more regular climate, with fine weather and typically summer temperatures, very sunny and total absence of rain. These conditions kept on until half August, when the afternoon storms came back and troubled us until the first ten days of September, when we had fine and sunny days again. From that moment on, we have had big temperature ranges between day and night (from 3,5°C in the night till 31° C in the middle of the day).
This allowed a good phenolic fruit ripening with a concentration of terpenes and aromatic substances in clusters that will contribute in giving fragrance and perfume to wines.
In our Estate the opening of harvest 2018 has fallen to our incredible and sugary Merlot grapes on 13th September – which will be used to produce our Supertuscan I Campacci – whereas we have waited up to the last ten days of September to harvest ripe Sangiovese clusters, doing a careful and accurate selection of the clusters in our vines, which will be used to produce our Chianti Riserva Terra Rossa. Anyway we can guarantee a good quality also for our young Chianti Colli Senesi; at last during the first ten days of October we have harvested the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Syrah grapes, that have reached an optimum fruit ripening, with which we will produce our premium wine Supertuscan Daniello, a more compound and well structured wine.
To conclude, considering the climatic trend of this year, we can state that we have reached harvest with wholesome grapes and with a good balancing among sugary contents and acidity. The excellent result that we have reached, thanks to the detailed work carried out both in the vineyard and in the cellar, will certainly warrant the production of more balanced wines in comparison with the ones produced in 2017.
As usual, the reviews of Tuscan wines have been published during August and September by the overseas magazines Wine Spectator and James Suckling: once more this year all of our red wines have received very positive feedback. This is increasing in all of us the great passion and enthusiasm that we feel every day, when we create wines, that are able to stir up emotions and express the territory which they belong to, the Chianti Colli Senesi.
