Vintage Reports

Matane’

Spring rains reduced quantities and caused some minor issues with disease across Puglia. But our grapes grow in the Manduria area, which suffered the least damage in terms of quality and quantities thanks to excellent ventilation. Alternating northern and southern winds favored concentration and health, somewhat reversing the effects of disease left from spring. An excellent vintage for Negroamaro, with higher aromatic and anthocyanin concentrations. Primitivo will also have excellent concentration but fine, if not rare, aromatic elegance.

Renato Spanu of JANKARA

The 2023 vintage is excellent and we expect great quality wines. We harvested about two weeks early, especially the reds. In terms of quantity, we are down about 15% over last year.

Ampelio Bucci of BUCCI

It was truly a very strange growth cycle for our vineyards, because this summer has lasted up to even today, October 23, when our vines are still completely green. We should have yellowed leaves, ready for winter sleep.

The harvest, contrary to all predictions, went very well. We were saved from the terrible attacks of Peronospora. There are two factors that helped us: the first is the crucial hard work of my team, led by Gabriele, whose numerous interventions in the vineyard worked, even if only for a short time, requiring several treatments. The other important factor is that our vineyards are far from other vineyards. I planted our 7 vineyards far from each other but also far from other people’s vineyards and this is very important as is the fact that we let spontaneous hedges grow around the vineyards, to defend against possible transmigrations of pathogens from one vineyard to another. We also cleaned any rotted wood on our vines (dendrosurgery) and pruned each vine, leaving a bit more than in previous years, which were perhaps reduced a little too much. The vines reacted very well and in fact we have a Verdicchio harvest 8-10% greater than last year and, interestingly it seems to have an alcohol content closer to 13% instead of 13.5% we’ve had over the last 10 years.

Now the wines have finished fermenting and are aging on their lees, which will continue to “animate” them over the winter months.

All in all, we saw excellent healthy grapes with good balance between the various components. What do we think about the future? We are going to continue our work in caring for individual vines, one by one, with our passionate team, which has a one-of-a-kind green thumb when it comes to vines.