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A NEW YEAR AND NEW VINTAGES ARRIVING

posted on 12 January 2020
RINE’ GAINS A SCREW CAP
This coming March, the new 2018 vintage of Riné, its second vintage as a certified organic wine, will debut on the market under a screw cap for the first time, and so we want to talk a bit about this type of closure. We have been using this closure for some years now for Rosanoire, and since last year for our latest-born Valtènesi Chiaretto. We have found the results positive in terms of cellarability, soundness, and crispness, in particular over the medium- and long-term; our customers, often tired of opening wines that were tainted, have expressed full satisfaction. So, after these years of trials and careful study, we decided to give a screw cap to Riné as well, something that would add to the well-known ageability of this distinctive white, allowing it to preserve even greater aromatic intensity, a characteristic particularly expressive in the 2018 vintage. Given the screw cap’s sterility and hermetic seal, bottling wines is definitely made much easier, since less sulphites need to be used, which adds up to greater respect for the wine itself, for the terroir, and for the health of the consumer.
NEXT ON THE RETAIL SHELVES
As mentioned above, mid-February will see the release of Valtènesi Chiaretto 2019 Bio, March that of Rosanoire 2019 Bio and of Riné 2018 Bio. With regard to the reds, the first bottles of Zerdì 2017 Bio are already available, whereas the debut of the new Groppello 2018 Bio will have to wait for Vinitaly 2020. True, it’s not a real debut, since it’s the same wine that was labelled Valtènesi DOC, but we have again added to the label its grape variety and taken advantage of that to freshen up the label. And an interesting new development: in 2017 we were intrigued by a tank of Pinot Noir that spontaneously fermented with indigenous yeasts, which we then aged just in steel and bottled about a year from harvest, without using stabilisation, clarification, or filtration—another great example of a open-minded «exercice de style» à la Cantrina. The result, IGT Benaco Bresciano Pinot Nero Bio 2017 Corteccio, the old name for the first Pinot Noir-based wines in the years when we were just starting out. There are just a few hundred bottles, and we don’t yet know whether or when there will be more, but these are perfect for adventuresome wine-lovers who want to “taste outside the boundaries”. The bottles are indeed few.

Cristina and Diego

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 …

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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