Winter 2024 was not a very cold one and unfortunately without snow. This lead to the budding of the vines started earlier than in previous years. Some rain in Spring helped face the early summer months.

We were very careful during the flowering in June, remembering how devastating it was in 2023 and fearing to find any spore of mildew. But
the weather helped us in this sense, with a dry June and July followed by rains in August that led our plants to reach a good ripening.
 
The harvest started on September 14th with the red grapes: a week earlier than in previous years. We started from the lowest vines, continuing in elevation. It was the hottest harvest we've ever had, reaching up to 30 Celsius and leading to the driest harvest we have seen in all my years on Etna. The ripening was very similar between one vineyard to another:
we harvested the grapes in Nave, our highest vineyard on October 4th, 15 days earlier than usual, finishing the harvest in just 20 days.
 
We can be satisfied with the production this year, with intense, deep reds. By incorporating a new vineyard planted in 2021, the Versante Nord Bianco will have a lower percentage of Minnella and more Carricante. We think that this will help bring more acidity to the wine. 
 
In 2024, we were able to produce the totality of our cuvées, unlike in 2023 where we only producerd Versante Nord Rosso and the  two whites .

Here is what we can say about the 2024 vintage:

It was a bit of a complicated year...

Frost was extremely localized but it still did its damage on a part of the Pain Perdu parcels, impacting our yields by about 20%.

It was a very cool summer, meaning we didn't have much respite from constant mildew pressure. 

Our September -the critical month before harvest- was also quite rainy, forcing us to manually strip off leaves from both sides on the vines to help accelerate the grapes' extremely slow maturation. 

Harvest itself was quite nice, it was the inauguration of our "new" very old vertical press for the whites and, for the first time, the reds as well. 

Yields are lower than 2023 but the juices are fresh with lower alcohol than recent vintages. 

Here are some photos: 

“2022 leaves us with the impression that we've seen what the future holds in terms of climate change: spring frost, lack of rain, summer heat.”

I wrote this for the 2022 harvest report. I was so wrong. So either I’m a total fool or the climate is changing and unpredictable. Most likely both.

2024 was super rainy and it still is as I’m writing this on December 11th. It’s been raining for pretty much a year here. So we had to adapt our work in the vineyard, no plowing, just cutting the grass, a lot of spraying against mildew. But at the end we had a reasonably good harvest. And we realize how lucky we were this year compared to a lot of other regions of France.

We hired a large team of young and motivated Europeans so the harvest was fast, finished in 3 weeks which is very comfortable compared to some vintages where it seems to last forever.

Yields and maturity were almost normal. The juices are fermenting very slowly in our brand new cellar but we stay patient. You can expect bright acidity and the whole range to be produced this vintage.

2024 was marked by a record amount of rainfall in France and Chinon was not spared. After avoiding any issues with frost, we were under intense mildew pressure from early May through mid-August. We spent all Spring and Summer fighting against this illness, which gnawed at the leaves and many grapes in certain parcels. 

We were hoping for an Indian summer that never came: September was just as rainy and forced us to push back our harvest start date to October. We then hoped that this extra time would give the grapes more time to concentrate in sugars but this remained fairly limited. 

Despite the weather conditions, the Cabernet Franc resisted fairly well but mildew still severely reduced our crop to about 30hl/h. With the Chenin, itself a thin-skinned variety, we had to find very short windows to pick so that the grapes not be diluted from water. 

The 2024 reds have nice color and structure, clocking in between 11.5 and 12.5 and without any agressive green notes. It's a little early to tell, but 2024 seems very promising and already superior to 2023, another vintage marked by heavy rain.  

After a dramatic 2023,  we were very worried about the seasonal trends we started seeing in 2024. The winter was hot and dry and caused early budding and flowering. Spring was normal with the right amount of rain. The vines were beautiful and full of grapes. This is perhaps due to the fact that last year the plants had practically no production in 2023 and had accumulated reserves for the following year.

Throughout the spring we let cover crops grow vigorously: broad beans, mustard, barley and vetch accompanied the vegetative push of the vines. July and August were extremely hot and above all completely without rain. Some areas of the vineyards suffered and there we had to harvest very early because the grapees were burning. But more generally, the stress blocked the ripening of the grapes: a year that seemed very precocious in the end was one of the slowest in recent years. With the beginning of September very nice rains arrived that helped plump up the grapes.

It was a joyful harvest. We harvested a lot of grapes, very healthy and with excellent acidity. Alcohol this year was lower than usual. We will have light and fresh wines, very easy to drink but the Crus will be also complex wines thanks to the beautiful acidity that will guarantee excellent evolution over time. Now we are waiting for the oxidation-reduction processes related to the fine lees to enrich the wines during the winter.

Here is a quick recap of theis "exceptional" vintage.

-A lot of cumulative rainfall in the 2023/2024 winter that was so intense it did not permit us to finish planting our cover crops. The ones we did plant had to get ripped out as they had rotted in the soil. 

- We had a spring frost in mid-April that destroyed between 1/4 to 1/4rd of the buds depending on the parcels.

-Over 300mm of rain in May and June which led to a simultaneous coulure and agressive attack of mildew on the buds. Even though coulure seemed to be responsable for the worst of the damage, mildew continued destroying buds all the way to veraison in mid-August. In total we did 14 treatments, four of which were on foot because the tractors couldn't get into the vines. 

-We had a two week break with no rain in the summer but it started up again in late August and continued through September. This led to grey rot during harvest, forcing us to leave many bunches on the floor during harvest. It also forced us to finish our harvest as quickly as possible in order to lose the minimum amount of grapes, which were already on the verge of dilution. It is the first time in our history that we did a double pass selection of the grapes, first in the vines and again in the cellar. 

In the end we brought in about 1/4 of a crop partially compensated by purchased fruit since our cellar was less than half full. The wines are extremely light (from 10 to 12.5%) but still precise and free of flaws. The only satisfaction of this vintage was the vinifications, which went very smoothly thanks to very high acidities and low alcoholic potential. It was also a first for us: the lowest levels of volatile acidity in the history of the estate!

Year after year the vine's growing cycle is getting shorter due to high summer temperatures (reaching up to 115°F) and low rainfall (about 150 mm/year). Our vineyards are not irrigated but I think irrigation will become necessary if things continue this way! Strangely enough, the younger vineyards have coped better with the stress than the older ones, and I think this made me realize that within a farm there should always be a balance between young, mid-life and old vines!

It is inexplicable that the Catarratto produced more than 2023, while the nero d'avola was down about 30 percent. The wines always have a certain freshness, and I really don't understand where it comes from this year, as they are slightly higher in alcohol. 

A big hug.

Stefania e Turi

2024 was complicated climactically. We harvested many grapes affected by mildew, as we had too much rain and not enough sun. 

Harvest started on October 2nd with the Chenin for Champ Chenin under cool but dry weather. The following day we picked the Chenin in Les Picasses in perfect health. On October 4th we began with the Cabernet destined to make rosé, which today consist of our youngest vines in the Bourg of Savigny: they have been farmed organically for four years and our neighbor does not want to vinify them.

On October 7th, the weather began to clear up and we harvested the Cabernet from sandy soils, picking for a week straight until we got to Les Picasses. We wrapped up on October 18th. Eric and Arnaud can confirm the rosé is very aromatic and textural, but for the rest it's a little early to judge.  

The harvest was exactly as we'd anticipated: tiny because of frost which affected 80% of the crop. What we did harvest was of excellent quality. 

More than anything, we had an amazing team that brought us incredible energy and limitless joy!!!!! 

So to recap: very little harvested but magnificent energy!

Anne,

Just like in many other parts of Italy and Europe, 2024 has been really difficult for us in Dolceaqua. After nearly three years of drought, we finally got rain. But in the worst moments: heavy rain during the blooming period through mid-July almost every day. This led to major issues with mildew and a loss of about 25% of our crop.

By the end of August, badgers and wild boars created another huge problem by eating half of the remaining grapes (both the vermentino and the rossese di dolceacqua). In the end, we have about 50% of a normal crop...

We are now harvesting our olives and hoping for a better 2025. 

The month of November was proof that the Northwest of Portugal never ceases to surprise us. It rained more that month than in the rest of the year. Overall, winter 23/24 was very rainy and frost-free. In April the heat arrived and the warm start of spring woke up the vines earlier than a normal year. 

At that point, some grape growers had already carried out the first sprayings in the region. The rain returned with force in May and continued into June, which was cold for this time of year. At the end of July and August came the hot nights, temperatures above 30 degrees and no rain.

This was a year with very healthy fruit, and our first without any rain along the harvest. Acidity was very well preserved with no dilution, keeping all of the grapes' concentration. 

We are very excited! 

Lots of rain, small quantities, low degrees...

It has been raining all year long: a lot and all the time. In fact it was twice the average quantity of a normal year! Therefore, blooming was not great and mildew was very strong. We had to spray a lot in order to fight it. We also had issues with grass and weeds due to the excess of rain. It was hard to plow and fight against them. These problems happened in Vouvray but also all over France. I lost 40 % of the harvest. It's bad, but some colleagues lost 80%.

The lack of sun caused a lack of sugar and alcoholic potential; nevertheless, I did not chaptalize my wines. However, I was only able to produce sparkling wines and still dry wines in 2024.

The good surprise is that the black rot from mildew was not very strong. In Vouvray, 60 mm of rain fell two days before the harvest. Everyone was fearing the development of black rot but it did not show up.

2024 will make fresh wines. As I already mentioned, I have lost 40 % of the harvest. That is a lot, but luckily the vintages 2022 and 2023 were generous and I have a good stock of all the cuvées.

2024: a year we won't soon forget.

To start, it was extremely rainy all year long: non-stop from October 2023 to October 2024, with a total cumulation of 1500 mm in 12 months. You could say we had no seasons for a full year. Very little sunlight, constantly humid, cold in summer, mild in winter. The coldest week of the year was in late April/early May, with negative temperatures and a snow storm (the one time it snowed all year).

The vegetative season began with a consequent episode of frost that did variable amounts of damage depending on the sector: 10 to 15% in Saint Baldoph for Avant la Tempête, 30 to 50% in Les Abymes for Pandaemonium and 80% in the Bugey for Soleyane white and red. The heavy rainfall that followed created a strong mildew pressure on vines that were already fragile from frost. The result: out harvest was very low: 265 HL in 2024 versus 330hl in 2023 and 440H in 2022. 

Thanks to a lot of patience and time spent in the vines, we were able to safeguard the quality of the grapes. Surprisingly, rot did very little damage and we were able to harvest beautiful bunches at optimal maturity. As always, the harvest was a moment of relief, spend in the company of a wonderful team. A great way to end such a demanding year...

The fermentations have been fast and smooth, with a large population of native yeasts and no issues. This vintage is making us once more understand that humid, difficult years in the vines can still result in very positive results in the cellar. The wines are very pure this year, with nice minerality and transparent expressions of terroir. We'll see how they evolve with elevage but the quality is frankly honorable considering how difficult the viticultural conditions were.  

Here are some photos of our harvest as well as our new plantation of Mondeuse in the Abymes sector. 

Sorry for the delay, I finally succeeded in sending you our small
report. Many photos and a few words: This 2024 has been a bellissima annata!
because we finally had the blessed rain... A wonderful blessed rainy
2023-2024 autumn/winter/spring as we never saw for more than TEN! years!
So all the plants were smiling and vines too..

You see the wonderful grapes in the photos, and you'll taste the wonderful 2024 soon!!

The 2024 season began with a cold and rainy spring, similar to the 2023 vintage, but with fewer problems due to downy mildew than the previous year. The vegetation grew very quickly in the months of May and June, requiring a lot of manual work in the vineyard to arrange the shoots and a total of 11 treatments with copper, sulfur, zeolite, infusions and/or decoctions of horsetail and nettle, which ended around mid-July.

By the end of June, the climate changed drastically, with scorching temperatures between 35 and 40 degrees and no rain until early September. This lead the plants to a state of suffering, first from excessive heat with obvious leaf burns and then (in August) due to drought. The rains returned on Septmember 8th, outlining the moments of the harvest and slowed down the ripening which seemed to proceed too quickly.

The grape yields per hectare were balanced (5000-7000 kg per hectare) and we managed to harvest the grapes at the right ripeness without having too high a sugar level. The harvest began on August 28 and ended on October 2 with a total of about 34,000 kg of grapes harvested.

The grapes were very different depending on the exposure and soil, so a lot of monitoring and tasting was done to evaluate the right degree of ripeness. Some fermentations went quickly and others went very slowly depending on how much the vines suffered. In November, in the vineyards where the vines suffered the most from drought, in addition to the usual green manure we distributed earthworm humus to increase the water retention capacity of the soil. The fermentations proved to be a perfect indicator of the degree of stress of the vines.

As always we had fun destemming by hand and pressing with our feet: 8000 Kg of Sangiovese, Barbera and Canaiolo nero.
The wines seem to have excellent aromas and a beautiful energy...we will observe their evolution over the months in the different containers (cement, stainless steel, fiberglass, wood and terracotta amphorae) always with the amazed and caring eyes of a parent full of love who lets their children express themselves freely with joy!

After a rainy, trying spring, we had a very hot and dry July and August. The harvest was one of the most difficult and wet in recent years. 

It was rather reminiscent of a harvest from the 90s; always wearing rubber boots and clothing which wouldn't have been out-of-place in mid-winter, and interrupted every two or three days by torrential rains. 

From the last week of September until the end of October (we finished harvest on Oct 25), the bad weather did not let up, causing difficulties in planning when to pick, and in entering (and exiting) the vineyards with our tractors. 

Towards the end of the harvest, the garganega grapes had botrytis and almost fell to the ground, but fortunately there wasn't any harmful acidic mold (thanks to the daytime temperatures remaining low.) 

The fermentations were affected because we did not always have a good pied de cuve starter to use, so especially in the last few days (in the fermentations without skin-contact maceration particularly) they were long and laborious. 

In the end, however, the aromas are good and we can only be happy with what we brought to the cellar.

-Emma Maule

The 2024 vintage was characterized by a severe drought that lasted nine months: no rain from January until the very end of September. This stressed the vines a lot, with very limited canopy growth and very little production (60% less than the 2023 vintage): in some plots close to the sea we didn't even harvest. The later-ripening areas of the island were saved (valleys and plots above 250 m above sea level), maintaining a good state of health thanks to the night-time humidity and lower daytime evaporation. In the lands most affected by the drought, the real problem will be winter pruning, as the shoots are very thin and it is difficult to find the buds for annual renewal: this could compromise production for next year.

The September rains allowed an excellent ripening of the second-growth fruit of Zibibbo (racemes) with which we make Ghirbì. The racemes have maintained a very good acidity despite climate trends. Too bad about the really small harvest: it will allow us to make only 250 bottles of ancestral sparkling wine.

The analyses of the new wines offer reflective inspiration: despite a pH around 4 and low acidity, the wines, although young, enjoy a beautiful freshness and a certain length, helped by the extract (the volcanic soil rich in potassium) and by the glycerol that develops in conditions of stress. A more Mediterranean way of thinking about winemaking, breaking away from prepackaged schemes that want white wines to be drinkable only if they have high acidity and low alcohol content.

This year some labels will be missing: Kaffefi (Catarratto grapes), Nivuro Nostrale (Pignatello grapes), Passulata (Zibibbo from early-ripening zones near the sea) and the four “single vineyards”. The few grapes available were used for Firri Firri and Terra Forte and the bottles available will be few. However, there will be some confidential experiments, which I deem very important to know more and more the many facets of our territory:

- Kharci (in dialect it means unpruned vine), made from grapes coming from a very old vineyard at 350 meters above sea level that was not pruned (but that from this year we will recover) because the owner passed away and no one wanted to take care of it anymore.

- Ghirbì MC–  a metodo classico sparkling made with Zibibbo racemes: we will use a special cap that allows us to exclude the yeasts of the tirage without doing a disgorgement. I worked on the design of this cap during my university thesis and it has finally been made! We will be the first to use it.

This difficult year invites us to reflect. In extreme territories like the one we live in, we must study and deepen our long winemaking tradition: to not remain anchored to the past, but using it as a springboard to jump higher. We are helped by the ancient island cultivation techniques such as making a basin for each plant, weeding the weeds several times a year to conserve even the smallest drop of water and, above all, improving the structure of the soil by increasing the available organic substance to allow the plants to react in the best way to increasingly exaggerated climatic conditions.

The good news is that this year we will come out with the four single vineyards for the 2023 vintage after a full year of rest in the cellar. They will have a new look and we will try to explain as best as possible the differences that such a small island can bring to your glass using a single grape variety - Zibibbo - but coming from different altitudes, exposures and soils.

December 22nd, 2023:

Another hot year! Another dry year! Another precocious year! That's five of the last six. But if you take a closer look, these hot and dry years all have their own particularities. The periods of heat are not the same, nor do they have the same intensity. And the rains land in different periods. So of course the vines react and act differently, which affects their ripening. In the end, it also impacts the final wines. Let's break down each stage of the vintage:

1- A Cold and Humid Winter that Ended Early

Between the end of the 2022 harvest into February 2023, winter was, generally speaking, both humid and glacial. But as early as February, temperatures became more clement, announcing an early spring. From then on, the temperatures remained appropriate and balanced for their season, provoking budding in mid-April, which tracks as normal timing in the last decade.

2- A Rapid and Complicated Start to the Vegetive Cycle

At the the end of April, the weather became more capricious; temperatures began to rise and rain started to fall persistently, creating a rise in mildew pressure. Our margin of error was slim to none, as this pressure coincided with the time we usually work the soils, making for complex work. 

The beginnings of euphoria began at flowering, which went off without a hitch. The foliage, robust and having survived the trying 2022 season, clearly had strong reserves, and the bunches proved to be abundant.  The end of May and beginning of June were rather mild, providing a much needed reprise from the pressures of fungal illness. 

3- A Rainy End of the Cycle

Around the 10th of June, the rain and mildew pressure was back right as we were observing the impressive growth of our grapes. Still, the state of the vineyards remained more than satisfactory, with solid potential yields, particularly remarkable on the Pinot Noir. Despite the work done with pruning of the branches in the spring, it was necessary to green harvest. The veraison took place in mid-July.

4-Slow but Perfect Maturation

Despite the continued rain and the added complexity this incurred to our work, the vines remained impeccable during the phase of maturation and throughout the harvest; in fact we were able to pick everything at optimal maturation. A heatwave in mid-September forced us to start harvesting earlier than expected, notably on the Pinot Noir, but also helped boost concentration in the grapes. We began harvesting on September 15th. In the end, our tireless efforts were rewarded! The bunches were plentiful and full of juice, both for the Pinots and Sauvignons.

5- The First Impressions of the Vintage

The quality of the grapes harvested have given wines with exquisitely pure aromas. For the vinification of the whites, the sugar levels are less elevated than in past years, creating better better fermentation conditions. The quality of the wines is incontestably manifested as they begin their elevage; they are showing balance and harmony. 

For the reds, thanks to a meticulous sorting of the grapes, we were able to find a very delicate extraction with fairly quick macerations. The wines are fruit forward but with a remarkable tannic structure. 

These were for the first two weeks of harvest. 

The 2023 season is not a perfect one: the weather constantly alternated between rain and sun, so we needed to treat a lot this year. Moreover, a hailstorm in July didn’t help. The Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tocai Friulano (already harvested) were in some parts more dry (because of hail), but in the end the crop was better than we expected. But we still have to collect all the reds and the Ribolla, or rather what we can of the Ribolla: it was the most damaged by hail and we lost a good part of the crop.

The first pictures show the the "Sivi" process (100% Pinot Grigio – 7/10 days on the skins), then the Slatnik (80% Chardonnay, 20% Tocai Friulano – 7/10 days on the skins) –  note Ivana doing the punching down and the skins after the maceration and the press. In the meantime we started to collect the grapes for the Oslavje (Chardonnay and  Sauvignon, half and half). Some panoramas and at the end Ivana and Saša preparing the new vats for the season.