bye bye #harvest2011

This post is also available in: Italian

two different types of Ciliegiolo grapes

It’s over, finish, no more grapes on the vines.

How was it? Medium quality I think, I’m telling you straight away (if it was a wine it would receive a 87 Parker points, not spendable in the US or Asian market, if you care about those things…)

Yes, nobody this year has yelled to the “harvest of the century”. Not because it isn’t, not because it’s impossible to make generalizations in any case (my harvest is different even inside MY vineyards), but because they starting to feel a bit ridiculous to keep saying it.

Anyway, it wasn’t all bad, we got a good deal of good stuff (not as much as I would like but…), notably our Sangiovese from the three vineyards we have on “the other farm” (podere Keeling, in Scansano), all planted with different clones of Sangiovese that are really very different and fascinating to taste, they almost look like different varieties, but at the same time the look the same, if you know what I mean.

This was our first harvest of  100% no-inoculated-yeasts and no sulfite added at the beginning of the fermentation. The only exception would have been, but it didn’t happen, for disease’s attacked grapes and potential alcohol > 15%. This is for the reds. For the whites that are fermented in a “reductive” way (that’s to say, with lower fermentation Temp.  and no or little contact with O2) we don’t feel confident enough to do without high performing (although neutral, meaning not selected to add particular flavors) yeasts and sulfite. For those whites, that are starting to be quite a lot in number, that are fermented with ski  contact and in oxidative way (open barrels usually), we did like for the reds, nothing added.

The whites seems interesting. We have done a lot of microvinifications of endangered grape varieties from the “Maremma alta“, the area between Manciano and Pitigliano, and there are a few that look very promising, among which my favorite is the Duropersico, a variety that existed for many years, and that tastes a bit as a Verdicchio. If things are confirmed we’ll perform DNA analysis and propagate with the view of planting new vineyards of it. A question arises in my mind: why the h..l are these experiment not carried out by Universities, Research centers, et similar, that we have in abundance in this country?

This is our last year in conversion to organic farming, next harvest our grapes will be certified organic!