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ProWein 2015

posted on 20 March 2015
Here I am back from Prowein, and this year simply confirms my opinion from the first year I participated, that it’s a thoroughly professional event, and very useful to wine professionals. Yes, there’s a lot of activity in the halls, but it’s quite calm and serious, and one doesn’t get over-tired. Here are some pix of Merum’s stand, with Andreas, who is not only a great connoisseur of native-grape wine and fine olive oils, but a good friend especially! Merum’s space was host to some 20 producers from various Italian regions, each with its own distinctive grape variety. This year, I was the “Queen of Groppello,” as Andreas humorously calls me. Right near to us was Simone Maiolini with his great Franciacorta, which points up another terrific advantage of these wine fairs: they make possible not only new business contacts, but new relationships as well with other producers, better knowledge of other aspects of wine, and other growing areas, and much good humour and exchanges of bon mots–even more than I can handle! See you next at Vinitaly, quite a different event altogether, very different…

2014 harvest… totally difficult, but not impossible

posted on 15 October 2014
We have finally finished this year’s troubled harvest, and after our series of tastings we feel that we can now give a very preliminary judgment on this year’s wines. The factors that characterised this growing season were huge amounts of rain, low average temperatures, little sun, and a summer that we saw only for brief moments. These conditions created a host of problems, with the grapes struggling to achieve ripeness and various fungal attacks – despite our constant efforts in the vineyards – affecting both clusters and leaves.

New Valtènesi DOC and Groppello

posted on 9 August 2014
1 September marks the official release of our first vintage of Valtènesi DOC, 2013. In point of fact, Cantrina’s Valtènesi is not a new product, since it simply takes the place of Groppello, with the same 100% of that variety and the same label design (in which the term Valtènesi replaces the name of the Groppello grape), but the change gives increased importance to the name of the growing area in which we live and produce our wines. It will just take a bit of time to get used to the new name and to communicate the message about the growing area, before that of the grape variety.

Rischi del mestiere…

posted on 7 July 2014
Dopo anni che non ci colpiva o ci aveva solo sfiorato, la “signora” ci ha fatto visita nella notte del 24 giugno interrompendo bruscamente una stagione che fin qui si presentava più che ottima: d’altra parte è un fatto ciclico e prima o poi doveva capitare anche a noi… C’è voluto qualche giorno per recuperare le energie e la voglia di analizzare serenamente l’entità dei danni, che per ora sembrano limitati ad una perdita di quantità, “solo” un 30/40% della produzione.
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