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Riné

posted on 21 March 2022
Dear Customers and Winelovers, We’d like to talk to you a bit about our Riné. Although it has changed over the years, we conceived Cantrina’s white wine--our distinctive blend of Riesling and Chardonnay, and a bit of other white varieties we grow here in our estate vineyards--as one that would evolve and mature with cellaring, offering its best even many years after bottling. We noticed, though, in the few years, that we were often forced to sell Riné too soon, and thus offering our customers a wine that was still inexpressive and therefore not fully appreciated for what it really was. Thus our decision to fully recognise the unique merits of this unusual wine by postponing the release of Riné 2020 at least until autumn 2022. As you well know, ours is a very limited production, fruit of a meticulous quality-selection of grapes grown in 8 hectares of organically-cultivated vineyards. Further, we have now had three successive growing years of below-average crops, a challenge that has constrained us to reduce the number of bottles or made it difficult to even produce some of our wines at all. We define ourselves as artisanal winegrowers, which means striving to pay close attention to every single detail in order to follow the most natural path possible in achieving our particular idea of the wine that we bottle and offer to our wine-loving customers. One “detail” that is fundamental for us, throughout the winemaking process, is the selection of the right time. There is a right time for harvesting, a right time for fermenting, for racking, for maturing the wine, for bottling, and, finally, for the right time-length for its ageing in the bottle before the right time arrive to fully enjoy the fruit of such lengthy efforts. Believe us, this decision has cost us a great effort, both logistical and, of course, financial, and it pains us to have to leave some customers wine-less for some months, but we are convinced that our choice will come to be appreciated over time as an act of rigorous winemaking and of respect for all the fans of this superb wine. Thank you, Cristina and Diego

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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