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newsletter

Epiphany 2013

posted on 6 January 2013
Yes, here I am again, now that the Befana, the traditional Good Witch of the Epiphany, has landed. She is bearing you, along with Diego, a full load of our warmest wishes for the New Year, and I personally wish that I too could bring you presents, but can you just picture a Befana scattering bottles of wine while trying to fly her broom at the same time?! So it’s better for the moment that the bottles continue to rest in the cellar, and that way they will be here for you when you come–invitation!–to visit us over the course of 2013 to taste them with us. Now, as far as what’s coming up in the near future … …as you already read in the previous newsletter, we have already been grubbing up part of our vineyard, which will quite soon be boasting the Groppello variety. This is a very important decision for us. As many of you know, the winery was conceived to focus mainly on wines made from non-local grape varieties, and so our winemaking was not held to the restrictions of the Valtènesi production codes. But the longer we looked at Groppello, the more we became strongly convinced of its superior qualities as a variety, not just as a market performer. So we are very proud, even if it has come after a full 10 years on, to add groppello to our wine portfolio. Removing part of our already modest vineyard to make way for a local grape is a significant move for us, but it shows our deep faith in groppello, and it will afford us the opportunity in the future of using the new DOC Valtènesi designation. In the meantime, the vineyards allow no leisure: we’ve already begun to prune the canes, tie up the vines, and to perform all of the small operations that go into managing a vineyard. These are the first bricks with which the 2013 vintage will be eventually built…. Just a few more days now and Rosanoire 2012 will be in the bottle, to be released late February-early March, all while our mind is racing ahead to plan for the next wines to be bottled over the course of the year: Groppello 2012, Zerdì 2010, Rinè 2012, Nepomuceno exercise n. 9… As you can see, there’s very little time to just stand around here at Cantrina, but all of our activity has been crowned by a very satisfactory 2012. The harvest was fine, and in spite of unsettled economic conditions our wines have met with brisk demand from our loyal customers and friends, which gives us good reason to look at the future with confidence and hope. Heart-felt best wishes and many, many thanks again to all of you for accompanying us and supporting us all these years. Cristina and Diego

Newsletter in the rain

posted on 12 April 2013
…nothing but rain, rain, and more rain… I swear that we have NEVER seen such a season!!! This has been a growing year that starting way back in autumn has brought rain practically every week, even though the winter was not particularly severe. One must exercise patience, and we know that “it never rains forever,” and that the sun does eventually appear. So, we can only hope. The activities in the vineyard are proceeding slowly (see above paragraph!), but things are going very nicely in the cellar. After bottling in January, we released Rosanoire 2012, and then in March Zerdì 2010 and Groppello 2012 went into bottle.

Harvest 2012

posted on 8 October 2012
It’s incredible: it seems as though we barely finished the 2011 harvest and here we are already at the end of this odd, totally crazy 2012!!! Yes, odd, since what else would be the right word to describe a growing year that started off with such a mild, dry winter that there was no snow, not even on the mountains, followed by a rainy, wet spring that created no lack of problems in the vineyards, which were trying to flower, then all of a sudden it was summer, and one of the hottest of recent years to boot? Hot and dry that is, until heavy rains came during the last stage of the growth cycle. So, changing environment, creeping tropicalisation of our climate? Who knows, but our job as winegrowers, and it isn’t an easy one, is to interpret as best we can what nature sends us, and so…

Crazy weather!

posted on 6 June 2012
Greetings to all of you, just a few months after our last newsletter, here we are again, right in the middle of a new growing season. “We just don’t have real seasons anymore,” has become a set-phrase overused by almost everyone, but it certainly is right on the mark for this crazy start to 2012! December and January were cold and dry, then February was freezing, followed by a March that was almost summer-like. Heavy rains and snow arrived only in late spring, with temperature swings of as much as 10-15oC between one day and the next. All of this crazy weather nevertheless brought the vineyards into very fine growing conditions, with growth that is quite vigorous, maybe even too much, since the vines are keeping us running to keep everything balanced and to monitor the crop.
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