consorzio del brunello Tag

2023 HARVEST IN BRUNELLO AND ORCIA

VIOLANTE’S FIRST TIME ALONE TO MANAGE THE HARVEST WHILE I AM IN MALTA. STORY OF A GRAPE HARVEST THAT NO ONE WILL EVER FORGET

Vendemmia 2023 Violante Cinelli Colombini with sorting table with optical reader Pellenc

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini #winedestination

The most difficult harvest of our lives.
My husband Carlo in hospital in Malta after he fell down the stairs, in our home in Gozo, which took him first  to the operating room and then to intensive care. Now he is recovering slowly: he talks, eats and moves his legs and arms but at the beginning it was really hard.
Violante, between one trip and another to Malta, managed the company and the harvest. For the first time alone managing the most important moment of the year and with a big innovation compared to the past: the optical reader for selecting the grapes.
The harvest was excellent in quality and very scarce in quantity. Half the amount of last year.

In addition to the downy mildew, we had 3 small hailstorms and then the assault of the ungulates. The roe deer jumped the fence of the Casato Prime Donne vineyards in Montalcino and the tourists left the gates at the Fattoria del Colle open, inviting the wild boars in for a snack.
2023 will be remembered as the year of downy mildew. An <<announced disaster >> say the German agronomists who had had the same experience before us and who asked to modify the organic regulations so as to have the tools to combat the fearful fungus. A request that Italy and France had opposed by making organic winemakers pay a high price. We hope that the next rainy year will find us more experienced and better equipped.