newsletter

Hello to all our friends!

It’s been quite some time since our last newsletter, since we’ve had so many things to do. Plus the fact that this growing year, just concluded with our 2024 harvest, was certainly not among our easiest, particularly for those like us, who have chosen to farm organically. The months have sped by, and here we are just now finding the time to catch you up on what we’ve been doing.

The growing year opened to a fairly cool winter, considering the global warming currently underway, with a freeze here and there and regular rains, which encouraged a spring budbreak that was normal, all thing considered, and not much earlier than in past seasons. Spring rains were copious from late April through all of May and June, and often so heavy and lengthy as to make our vineyard management and anti-fungal defence very challenging and nerve-wracking. July and August fortunately delivered sun and endless warmth, considerably helping us to manage things on all fronts and to prepare the fruit as best as possible for the imminent harvest. Which took place in textbook fashion in September, just before the return of torrential rains.

The crop was a really small one, since we lost some 40% of it to adverse weather in the spring, but meticulous, painstaking quality-selection of the grapes in the weeks preceding picking meant that e brought in very good quality grapes. Now, with fermentations almost finished, and with just the grapes for Sole di Dario, still in the drying process, we can say that the rosés, as well as the whites, are showing very well, clean and taut. The same goes for reds, which are a tad less powerful than in past vintages but still fully representative of the Cantrina style.

The winecellar now boasts a new occupant, a concrete “Tulip,” an eye-catching “cask” that is already coddling our new Groppello 2024. We believe that its material is splendidly suited to the maturation of this noble yet delicate grape variety. Next spring, we will be completing the planting of the new vineyard we began last year, part white varieties and part Groppello. We expect our first clusters from it in the 2025 harvest. In 2024 we bottled the two 2023 rosés and Sole di Dario 2021, Groppello 2023, Riné 2023 and Nepomuceno 2021; we are especially pleased with Zerdì . Our rebohas turned out to be a more ambitious wine, with a more spicy character, than in the past, so we thought of giving it a better dress: it’s now in a more elegant Burgundy bottle and bears a new label.

Mercato dei Vignaioli Indipendenti in Bologna, at Hall 29, stand A 42, on 22, 23, 24 November 2024.

This link will allows you to personally witness some moments of our harvest. Maybe one day we will gather everything together in a lovely book, all 20 harvests!

Cristina and Diego