Sweetness,
The 2011 vintage was two-sided, a duality that persisted until September, when the two sides finally reached a balance.
Climatically, it was a challenging year. The vines flowered on 31st May. Until the first ten days of August the weather was almost perfect for the vines and the grapes developed well, with a steady accumulation and development of polyphenols.
This stable phase ended decisively and without warning on 10th August, with a heat-wave that lasted 25 days. These extreme, desert-like conditions affected the vines, damaging parts of the bunches, especially the south-facing ones. We removed the hardest-hit bunches, which allowed the remaining ones to develop better and more sweetly.
The August heat led us to an important decision: we harvested the vineyards depending on their exposure to the sun.
At the beginning of September the rain returned, cooling and refreshing the vineyards and restoring balance to the vines, and the harvest began on 27th September to general relief.
As we do every year, we have tried to find you a memory from long ago. Morando, a thirteenth-century grammatician and teacher in Bologna, best-known for writing Vinum dulce gloriosum, wrote:
“Se maturo e pien di gusto, è piacevole e a noi gradito, giacché acuisce i sensi.
Ma se acerbo la lingua morde tutte le viscere sconvolge e il corpo corrompe”
“If it’s full-bodied and tasty, it’s pleasant and we enjoy it, because it sharpens the senses.
But if it’s acidic, it bites the tongue, curls up your insides and rots the body.”