newsletter

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.