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Epiphany 2012

posted on 6 January 2012
As usual, the Befana [the old crone who personifies Epiphany] is bringing with her the latest news from Cantrina (or, if you prefer, the first of the new year…) and this is also an excellent opportunity to wish all our friends and clients a splendid 2012!!! So, here we are: The 2011  ROSATO (Rosé) made from Pinot Nero has been bottled in the last few days (its release is planned for mid-February) and we have great faith in the quality of this product, in which we have sought to bring out – even more than in the previous vintages – freshness, finesse and elegance. This wine now becomes an integral part of the estate’s range and acquires its own individual name, ”ROSANOIRE”, which recalls the refined notes that derive from the Pinot Nero grape. Libero Esercizio di Stile: our quest to find and develop new “open-minded exercices de style” continues and soon no less than TWO “unusual novelties” will go on the market. The first is another very particular and characterful Rosé from the 2010 vintage…we are talking about a 100% Petit Verdot wine that has been matured inbarriques for around 10 months. It struck us as being really interesting, so we thought: “why should we deprive ourselves of the pleasure of having 890 bottles of this wine??” The other Libero Esercizio di Stile has been in the cellar for a few years and is now just about ready to be released. It is from the 2007 vintage, and we like to define it as an old-style wine. Made from late-harvested Chardonnay grapes, it was fermented and “forgotten about” in barrique for over a year, and so it is now full-bodied, spicy, heady and full of flavour. In this case too we are talking about a thousand bottles or so… We would like to make it quite clear that these wines we refer to as “exercices de style” are quite simply the result of our desire to have fun experimenting with new ways of vinifying our grapes which, when they turn out well, we wish to share with others: they certainly aren’t attempts to follow any easy and predictable market trends. We close with the news that we are very happy with the 2011 vintage, seeing that the first checks on the wines’ development in the cellar make us think that we should be able to look forward to great results in the future. What we hope most of all, though, is that we can all keep on smiling, even when we are faced with years whose outcome is far less generous, whether we are talking about the vineyard or our everyday lives. Wishing you all once again the very best for the New Year, we invite you – as always – to come and visit us… Cristina and Diego P.S.: Save the date! On the 30th January in New York, at the Metropolitan Pavilion, there will be the presentation of this year’s Slow Wine Guide and a tasting of some of the wines that are reviewed in it. We shall be there too with our Groppello and Rinè.

Harvest 2010

posted on 6 November 2010
What can we say about the 2010 harvest, which came at the end of a year that was especially strange and difficult? There was a late spring and a rainy summer that was cool and humid, an early autumn and lots of problems with the health of the vines. 2010 will definitely not be one of the vintages of the century and, as things stand right now, it is very hard to pick out any products of real excellence. However, after the first few days of harvesting, which caused us a great deal of apprehension because of all the care and hard work that we had to put into selecting the grapes, we can now say that we are hoping for a few pleasant surprises from the vats where fermentation is just coming to an end. In short, it took us more time to pick less grapes than usual; also, we didn’t set aside any grapes for drying to make the Sole di Dario and we selected fewer grapes for the Nepomuceno. From our initial tastings, though, we can look forward to wines that may be less fleshy and muscular, but which display great freshness, fine aromas and acidity and which should eventually offer elegance and longevity. The French (who know a thing or two about wine) refer to these as “cellar masters’ vintages”: years in which the skill and sensitivity of the winemaker really can compensate for nature’s lack of generosity. We hope we’ve done a good job!

Cantrina at New York

posted on 6 July 2010
Hello there everyone! As in all family-run companies we’ve been very busy, and so some time has passed since our last newsletter… Here, then, is a little news about our activities over the past few months. Having found an importer in the United States, we went to New York for a brief business trip and we are now looking forward to seeing our wines on the lists of some specialist wine stores and/or exclusive restaurants in Manhattan. In our opinion, New York is a city that offers great opportunities and there even particular products like ours can find the right type of market exposure. At a tasting at the Hudson Hotel our products – especially the Nepomuceno and the Rinè - were highly appreciated, and our American friends suggested that we define our wines as “unconventional” because of the character and original style that set them apart.

Let’s meet in Cantrina

posted on 1 April 2010
LIBERO ESERCIZIO DI STILE 2009 We keep on experimenting at Cantrina and in 2009 it was the turn of a tank of Roséobtained from the vinification of 100% Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir) grapes. At the moment, fruit and freshness are the main characteristics of this wine. The must was in contact with the skins for about 9 hours, followed by careful vinification and maturation in stainless steel. In our opinion it is a wine that has good potential for development: we’d like to see what it’s like in a year’s time… after all, we’re talking about a rosé made from a well-structured grape like Pinot Nero. By the way, the wine is already on sale.
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