December 22nd, 2023:

Another hot year! Another dry year! Another precocious year! That's five of the last six. But if you take a closer look, these hot and dry years all have their own particularities. The periods of heat are not the same, nor do they have the same intensity. And the rains land in different periods. So of course the vines react and act differently, which affects their ripening. In the end, it also impacts the final wines. Let's break down each stage of the vintage:

1- A Cold and Humid Winter that Ended Early

Between the end of the 2022 harvest into February 2023, winter was, generally speaking, both humid and glacial. But as early as February, temperatures became more clement, announcing an early spring. From then on, the temperatures remained appropriate and balanced for their season, provoking budding in mid-April, which tracks as normal timing in the last decade.

2- A Rapid and Complicated Start to the Vegetive Cycle

At the the end of April, the weather became more capricious; temperatures began to rise and rain started to fall persistently, creating a rise in mildew pressure. Our margin of error was slim to none, as this pressure coincided with the time we usually work the soils, making for complex work. 

The beginnings of euphoria began at flowering, which went off without a hitch. The foliage, robust and having survived the trying 2022 season, clearly had strong reserves, and the bunches proved to be abundant.  The end of May and beginning of June were rather mild, providing a much needed reprise from the pressures of fungal illness. 

3- A Rainy End of the Cycle

Around the 10th of June, the rain and mildew pressure was back right as we were observing the impressive growth of our grapes. Still, the state of the vineyards remained more than satisfactory, with solid potential yields, particularly remarkable on the Pinot Noir. Despite the work done with pruning of the branches in the spring, it was necessary to green harvest. The veraison took place in mid-July.

4-Slow but Perfect Maturation

Despite the continued rain and the added complexity this incurred to our work, the vines remained impeccable during the phase of maturation and throughout the harvest; in fact we were able to pick everything at optimal maturation. A heatwave in mid-September forced us to start harvesting earlier than expected, notably on the Pinot Noir, but also helped boost concentration in the grapes. We began harvesting on September 15th. In the end, our tireless efforts were rewarded! The bunches were plentiful and full of juice, both for the Pinots and Sauvignons.

5- The First Impressions of the Vintage

The quality of the grapes harvested have given wines with exquisitely pure aromas. For the vinification of the whites, the sugar levels are less elevated than in past years, creating better better fermentation conditions. The quality of the wines is incontestably manifested as they begin their elevage; they are showing balance and harmony. 

For the reds, thanks to a meticulous sorting of the grapes, we were able to find a very delicate extraction with fairly quick macerations. The wines are fruit forward but with a remarkable tannic structure. 

These were for the first two weeks of harvest. 

The 2023 season is not a perfect one: the weather constantly alternated between rain and sun, so we needed to treat a lot this year. Moreover, a hailstorm in July didn’t help. The Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tocai Friulano (already harvested) were in some parts more dry (because of hail), but in the end the crop was better than we expected. But we still have to collect all the reds and the Ribolla, or rather what we can of the Ribolla: it was the most damaged by hail and we lost a good part of the crop.

The first pictures show the the "Sivi" process (100% Pinot Grigio – 7/10 days on the skins), then the Slatnik (80% Chardonnay, 20% Tocai Friulano – 7/10 days on the skins) –  note Ivana doing the punching down and the skins after the maceration and the press. In the meantime we started to collect the grapes for the Oslavje (Chardonnay and  Sauvignon, half and half). Some panoramas and at the end Ivana and Saša preparing the new vats for the season. 

November 13th, 2023:

Harvest was good. Long and healthy. No broken things this year. We managed to get our production in 40 000 bottles. Now it just needs to be sold. And we're good :)

2023 was a great year. In Portugal, the winter 22/23 was very cold, and historically very wet and rainy. Healthy soils got good reserves and the vines produced great. Some of the parcels we source saw 30 to 60% production rises. Spring was warm and soft. No massive heat waves and no rains or fogs in the dangerous times. Mild sugar levels with good ripening and satisfying pH's and acidity. Overall it's looking great.

The harvest here was great, difficult summer, with some rain in July and August, but in general I like the year a lot, good wines and some more quantity.

The harvest was really busy and too long,  six weeks! In the end all wines are perfect, fermentations fast as hell, and wines done at the beginning of October.

Happy time of the year, always with really good friends and family!!

Our estate celebrates 25 years of activity this year. And we would really have liked to dedicate this harvest to all these years of work and sacrifice, but also to lots of satisfaction!

The beginning of spring was good, the vines started their vegetive cycle well and after flowering, the bunches were plentiful, beautiful and well distributed. Then, it arrived with an unprecedented power, the Unexpected: first a flood and then the Landslides. First on May 2nd, then a second, the most devastating, on May 16th and 17th... Everything turned into a river we witnessed an unprecedentedly violent landslide ... it was like nothing we'd ever seen before. 

About 30-35% of the vineyards disappeared in the landslides. But for those that remained, it was absolutely impossible to go to the vineyard with a tractor or anything else. In the following weeks we tried to intervene manually with copper treatments to 'save' what remained. But unfortunately, despite all our efforts, 'She' won... Mildew. "She' had dried 50-55% of the remaining bunches. At this point, approximately 10% of the total production remains.

And when we think we're at our lowest... on July 13th we were hit by a whirlwind of hail. And there is nothing left... not even a bunch of grapes to pick.

Being in the worst situation a winemaker can find himself in, I tried and wanted to "see" an opportunity! Just 1.5km from us, on the other side of the hill towards the micro-fraction of Zattaglia where there was no damage, a young farmer who has vineyards of Albana, Sangiovese and Trebbiano (and obviously does not intervene chemically on the vineyard!), gave us the possibility of selecting grapes and to harvest what encouraged us to 'save' a vintage. An opportunity and experimentation that will certainly help us understand the territory and all of its nuances!

In the meantime, in these long months, we have continued the work to restore the road that leads to the house and everything that surrounds the vineyards. You, even without knowing it, have helped us a lot and we will always be grateful for this! There is still a lot to do in the vineyards and unfortunately not everything will be recoverable. But we hold on and remain confident.

It is the second winter in a row with extremely dry conditions. We had basically no rain from mid-December to April. Lake Garda, which is a 40-minute drive from our winery, had the lowest water level ever recorded in 2023. The consequences on flora and fauna were dramatic, with the liveliness of nature feeling reduced. My ski season cost me two pair of skies, as even the northern couloirs on glacier areas were full of stones. Continuous hard times for my beloved winter-alpinism in the Dolomites.

Then everything flipped: May, June and especially July were extremely rainy. The lack of water in the winter season was recuperated by end of September. In terms of temperatures it was quite a ride: the winter was very mild, summer cold and September and October surprisingly hot. These conditions had a strong impact on vegetation and on the vines. Mildew was our main concern (15% loss of production) with added hail damage on a part of the Foradori Rosso vineyards. All in all, we had 22% less production compared to 2022, which which felt like a normal good harvest.

All the white varieties reacted quite well to these conditions: we have more acidity than 2022 and less opulent fruit. The reds, which are still fermenting, are less consistent and more obscure in their evolution at the moment. Maturation was regular, but the fruit is not as bright we'd hoped. The lack of light during the summer season is showing the more herbal and spicy side of Teroldego.

Harvest started August 28th and finished October 2nd; quite long for us. The Pinot Grigio was hit by hail twice: once in July and once in August. The damage felt negligible in the first instance, but, when it came to harvest, we saw the result on the sorting table. Many berries were dried out or not fully matured because they were touched -even slightly- by the storms. Our Pinot Grigio is planted in the pergola system, so leaves protect grapes from more dramatic damage. Still, light scoffs still reduce maturation significantly. We had to sort these berries out carefully. The result was reduced quantities but, after fermentation, the wines are bright and straight as arrows.

We decided to pick Manzoni Bianco quite early, in the beginning of September. Acidities were still nice around the end of August. September stayed quite warm. We succeeded well in choosing the moment of harvest to have a good balance of phenolic maturation and freshness. Fermentations were very regular. Nosiola was more complicated to interpret: We decided to proceed with the picking in two passes with almost two weeks of pause in between. The aim was to keep freshness by picking early and search more complexity with a later harvest. Today the first picking shows more energy and tension, which I prefer at the moment. It will be curious to see how both trials will develop.

By the end of July, the Teroldego was unbalanced and showed an irregular veraison. This was the consequence of the extremely rainy month. We decreased the yield on average by 20% -by cutting down green fruit- to get the rest to ripen regularly. It was a good decision. Unfortunately the hail hit plots for the Foradori Rosso and Sgarzon lost an additional 20% with later storms. Maturation was slow even with a warm September and some rain in the first half of the month. The first pickings showed a crunchy fruit. Morei, picked later this time, reminds me of cold Syrah from Cornas. The Granato vineyards (especially Regin and Noval) were very healthy. Sgarzon, affected by botrytis and hail, is having a harder time this year, a bit like in 2021.

The 2023 vintage was strongly affected by extreme weather conditions. I think we will see more of this kind of years in future. Plants were stressed and reflect this trend in the fruit. Similar stress levels as 2022, but almost flipped conditions. We have to understand which are the right varieties to interpret such extremes.

Our harvest team was really formidable and the rhythm was constant and pleasant. During Spring and Summer many interventions were needed, due to the constant occurrence of mildew’s favorite weather conditions. It was a particularly work intensive year and we feel deeply thankful for everybody’s sacrifice.

We began our 2023 harvest on September 25th and wrapped up on October 7th. June and July were overcast and August was very hot, which certainly had an impact on the vines' cycle. We had a team of 32 pickers and ideal weather throughout the harvest.

For the first year ever, we picked some of the Cabernets before the Chenins, as some were taking longer than usual to reach full maturation. 2023 will be a year with lower alcoholic potential than 2022, with nice acidity and balance. We also harvested more than 2022, which is always a good feeling!

November 20th, 2023:

After a Spring without frost and a smooth flowering that announced a generous crop, Summer was much more complicated, with a variety of climatic challenges that kept us on constant alert. The first was a constant humidity maintained by small episodes of rain that led to mildew pressure. Then we saw a bit of odium in late July/early August and finally a hail storm in mid-July that damaged some of the more exposed bunches but didn't really affect the crop, save for a small sector more in the Northern Mâconnais that was devastated.

When the sun was out you could really feel the heat, but it was certainly cooler overall than the last few years. Late August did however catch us by surprise, with temperatures soaring from 104 to 112 during the day; as the vines are not shaded, this caused sun damage to vines on the edges of each row as well as blocking maturation. Then, from one day to the next, the weather radically dipped to the high 60's (with snow in higher altitudes!) in a moment when the crop was struggling to ripen. By being patient, summer "returned" in September with more pleasant weather that got the grapes where they needed to be. Despite all these challenges, we maintained a good crop.

We began harvesting on September 7th and finished on the 22nd, all under a warm sun until the very last few days when it rained. To avoid the afternoon's heat, we harvested only in the morning into the early afternoon. As we continued picking, the alcoholic potential revealed itself to be between 13% and 14% but with lower acidities than usual and higher PHs. This was quite stressful, and we were extremely vigilant in following the alcoholic fermentations in order to avoid and accident or blocked ferment. We systematically cooled the juices immediately following press, and made sure to separate the ends of presses, which are always less acidic, in order to keep as much tension as possible. In spite of our fears, particularly that the malolactic fermentation would start before the alcoholic fermentation was finished, everything went well. The fermentations are however slow, with some wines having not started their malo at the time of this writing. 

The wines are rather pleasant, round, true to form but marked by their lower acidity, giving the wine an unctuous quality without feeling heavy or flabby. It should be a an easy to drink vintage... let's wait a few months to find out!

2023, not so easy...

From bud break to the harvest, extreme climate once again put us up against major challenges. April was fresh and humid; we avoided any frost but this weather persisted with regular rainfall up until early June, forcing us to be very attentive to the vines in regards to mildew. By mid-June the weather had gotten warmer, which was favorable to  flowering. It also felt like 2023 was going to be more precocious than the last few vintages. The summer was very dry up until mid-August, but the weather became very stressful for the second half of the month, alternating between brief rainfalls and really hot days which complicated the grapes' maturation. 

The red grapes suffered most from this capricious weather, but we had to wait as the the sugar levels were still too low to pick. We began the 2023 harvest on September 11th with the Pinots, which required a tremendous amount of sorting work in the vines and in the cellar to salvage usable grapes. Things did however go a lot more smoothly with the white grapes: the Chardonnay were low yielding but very ripe and the Sauvignons were generous (40 to 50hl/h) and very balanced, with potentials between 12% and 13% depending on the parcel. Fermentations ended in early November for most of the  vats.

By September 25th, we were ready to pick the Romorantin. We prioritized the young vines: the sugars were showing potentials of 13% but the acidity is still nice and present. As were the yields, which came in around 40 to 50 hl/h. We ended with the old vines, which of course were low yielding. The Romo juices are very promising, and they too finished fermenting in November.

After four weeks of harvesting, everyone is tired but we feel satisfied with the vintage. I'm waiting to see how the reds evolved by the Spring, but for now things are rather promising.

November 17th, 2023:

Following a Spring with balanced weather conditions and a generous output from the vines, we were caught off-guard by uncertain weather marked by frequent rainfalls as of mid-June, followed by alternating hot and cool periods. The combination of these factors led to signs of deterioration on some of the grapes from mid-August, and this was reinforced by heavy rains in early September. These conditions forced us to go into a deep reflection to better understand the vintage and to be able to bring the grapes to maturity.

Faced with quickly deteriorating sanitary conditions for the vines and incomplete ripening, successive passes, already a practice at the domaine, proved even more essential. The pickers, many of whom we are happy to see come back every year, made the most of their experience in selecting bunches of grapes in an always cheerful atmosphere!

We carried out four five passes in each block. The first was to remove the sadly rotten bunches and to leave the others to ripen. The next passes enabled us to pick healthy, crunchy, or golden grapes little by little. Harvest took place from Monday, September 11th to Wednesday, October 4th.

In the spirit of research and innovation we have always had at the domaine, this year we experimented with new pressing regiments. Gentler and longer, they enabled us to extract finer juices with great satisfaction. The indigenous yeasts fermented the musts quickly. They revealed wines with a nice acidity and fresh aromas that we had almost forgotten with the roundness of recent years. Now it’s time for the slow aging process! While the vintage was very demanding in the vineyard, it was nevertheless generous. Thanks to the yields obtained, we can go back to a wider range of wines, with refreshing cuvées in white and red, but also a methode ancestrale sparkling called "Les Insolites".