Vintage Reports

Renato Spanu of JANKARA

2022 was a warm and dry vintage that matured early but was great quality! Zero sickness or problems in the vineyard, just much lower yields, which obviously lead to great quality!

Angela Bortoluzzi of Bortoluzzi

Contrary to predictions made in August, the 2022 harvest turned out to be better than expected and considerably in line with last year’s quantities.

The growth cycle saw record drought conditions and temperatures that began in early spring. The lack of water was undoubtedly our biggest challenge. Those of us who are allowed to irrigate, were able to take advantage of the weather, and ended up with higher numbers than 2021 and excellent healthy grapes.

Budbreak did start late for us, but gradually recovered in terms of time and harvested ending up coming early – in late August for Sauvignon, followed by Pinot Grigio and eventually the other wines whites.

The other “challenge” this vintage was finding the right time to harvest the grapes to have the perfect balance between sugar and acidity, especially for the whites. In fact, when temperatures exceed 28 °C (82.4 °F) photosynthetic efficiency is lower and consequently, the accumulation of sugars also slows down and acidity decreases rapidly. However, grapevines are always very generous, often giving providing us with great satisfaction – precisely in the seasons that seem more difficult.

Ampelio Bucci of VILLA BUCCI

For us, this season was very dry, and we were very worried. But what saved us were the old vineyards – at least 50 years and one even 65 years old.

These vineyards have very deep roots in soils with a strong presence of active limestone, but below that, clay, which holds humidity. Thus, the vines stood up well to the heat, also because we are constantly out in the vineyards managing the canopy, ensuring that some leaves protect the grape clusters (We don’t cut the leaves of higher branches anymore).  We’ve also experimented with spraying a bit of kaolin on the leaves and grapes. This thin veil protects the grapes, if only temporarily from the scorching sun. We were also fortunate to see at least a half day of rain on the second day of harvest, which helped a lot. Now the wines are just finishing up their very slow fermentation. We don’t think there were any qualitative consequences from the season – so we are hoping for excellent quality with about 13% alcohol.

Having always done limited quantities – 60-70 quintals per hectare – we won’t even see much of a reduction in quantity at all.