Precisely today, Wednesday 3rd August, we are officially starting the 2022 harvest in our Brolo vineyard.
And, to tell the truth, this current growing year is certainly one for the record books, since there has never been a year like it, with unprecedented above-average heat and dry conditions.
As with every growing season, nature is the one who makes the fundamental decisions, and the 2022 weather brought us a generous crop of clusters in perfect health. Still, we’ll only know the true quality of the must at the moment we press the grapes.
“The conditions this year were without doubt an alarm bell for all of us, no matter our particular area or the wines we make,“ remarked the CEO and Winemaker Arturo Ziliani. “We are all faced with a serious challenge, a symptom of the grave problem facing our planet. Nonetheless, at least as far as this year goes, I can say that we’re optimistic, since rainfall in the last few days of July, though light, did substantially benefit fruit quality. Over the next few weeks, as we harvest our grapes, we’ll see a reduced crop, but we’re also seeing that this vintage will be of very high quality.”
The weather prevailing over the last month, together with our green viticultural practices, laid out in our Sustainable Viticulture Protocol, which is shared with our partner-growers, allowed us, even in a year as “extreme” as this, to make only very limited use of emergency irrigation. Thus, we were able to preserve both the quality of our clusters as well as our precious water resources.
Summing up, we coped with a very challenging year, but we expect from it great Franciacortas!