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Befana 2016

posted on 5 January 2016
As is by now our tradition, the Befana di Cantrina, our very own Good Witch, wants to extend her warm wishes to all our friends and customers for a New Year filled with peace and serenity. At long last, after two challenging harvests, the splendid 2015 was gifted to us, an experience we wouldn’t mind at all repeating, so, please, let’s all start rooting for a fabulous 2016! And now for the news from Cantrina. Cantrina is growing In our own little corner of the world, we are quite pleased with how the wine market is going, and we have thus become aware that our estate vineyard might not be large enough to support the required growth in our production. So we decided to look around a bit, and we had the good luck to be able to lease a fine vineyard, quite close to us. The upshot is that starting next year, Cantrina will be able to count on over two hectares of vineyard, and all planted to Groppello, to boot! Our latest vintages New vintages now available: RINE’ 2014 is already out on the shelves; equally impressive are its complex bouquet and vivid acidity. NEPOMUCENO 2011 continues on the path set by preceding vintages, towards ever-more pronounced genuineness and freshness, while exhibiting a lean austerity that makes this wine perhaps the most “French-style” we have produced. Our customers will have to wait until the first days of March to see ROSANOIRE 2015 2015, which will be bottled in about two weeks, together with the superb ZERDI’ 2013; the latter, though, won’t be ready to leave us until a bit later, probably in late spring. Market Developments Since we are always striving to work more efficiently and to satisfy as best we can the needs of our customers, we have decided, with the new year, to begin a distribution relationship with B-wine for the area around Brescia. You can also find our wines in their wine shop in Via Campagnola in Manerba. Wine events By now our participation is traditional in Catalogo 2016 organized by PROPOSTA VINI in Bussolengo (Verona) at the Hotel Montresor Tower on January 24th and 25th. Two naturally leads to three, so we will be present for the third time at PROWEIN in Düsseldorf, 13-15 March2016, as always at the Merum area, in Pavilion 16, at Hall E71. Work and Projects We have finally finished the re-structuring project that kept us so occupied in the second half of last year, but the cellar-work is still keeping us all busy, with topping-up, racking, preparing wines for bottling (full-time or not), there’s always much that needs doing…. In the meantime, while waiting for the real winter to hit, we’re now well long with winter pruning and the normal vineyard maintenance. And the projects? Always. For winemakers, it’s in our blood to always be on the lookout for something else and always be straining towards the future, with the result that sometimes ideas and methods, and other times old equipment abandoned for years, return burnished and once again relevant. But we’ll talk about this again soon. Warm wishes Cristina and Diego

Cantrina in real time

posted on 4 March 2011
I am writing from New York… I try in English (no time, unfortunately to have our dear Michael Benson translating for us). The weather is fine, better than in Italy, chilly temperature but no snow. The city is amazing, as always and each time I’m back it seems to me like being back home. Just an update about the mess I’m doing here, working in New York for the second time this year. Today a benefit event will be held by the Brooklyn based Issue project Room, rapidly becoming the point of reference for contemporary art in the New York area. Cantrina is a proud sponsor and our wines will be the only ones in tasting for the night

The Befana’s* Newsletter

posted on 5 January 2011
*[In Italy the feast of Epiphany is “personified” by la Befana, an imaginary, witch-like crone who brings gifts to good children and (sweet) “coal” to those who have misbehaved]. I always like to be a little bit different, so the Befana’s feast is one I identify with… and that is why I am only now taking the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year, assuming you have survived the massive beanfeasts during the recent holiday period! I just have one or two TEENSY-WEENSY bits of news to tell you about: Cantrina has also gained a foothold in MonteCarlo, for now just with our most extreme wine, the ERETICO 2007… I am increasingly convinced that unique products really do make a difference in the marketplace and so one should always be prepared to TAKE A GAMBLE!

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!
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