2011 Harvesting
Winter 2011-2012 was a rather peculiar season because of its mild temperatures and dry weather which lasted until mid-February.
February was, at first, snowy and later extremely cold with temperatures well below the average even going down to – 15 degrees. The consequence was an unusual delayed vegetative restart with an uneven and scaled trend.
Then Spring was cool and wet at the beginning. This provided a good water supply which, together with May high temperatures, brought about an acceleration and rebalancing of the vegetative development.
With its substantial rainfalls, June saw a less than normal setting which brought about less compact bunches. The rest of the summer was hot with the highest temperatures in the second half of August. This did not cause any water stress, however, thanks to the previous good water supply.
The harvesting, which for the white grapes started 10 days earlier, developed more regularly for the red ones which were favored by two timely rainy days early in September together with lower night temperatures.
In general, there was a 5% – 15% decrease in production, depending on the vineyards, but with healthy and excellent quality grapes.
The wines
Also the harvesting was peculiar. Normal, sunny weather conditions in the crucial last two August weeks and on favored all our strategic decisions connected with harvesting.
Our white wines are full and balanced with a unique, fresh pleasantness which enhances their fruity features.
Our young red wines are endowed with an exceptional roundness which makes them easy to be appreciated since now as they are invitingly pleasant. The Barbera results are extremely good. This wine is in fact endowed with rare concentration and vinous characteristics difficult to obtain again, while Nebbiolo based wines are fabulous with a rare intense color for this variety.
Elegance and typical finesse emerge in these balanced ,but also powerful wines.