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vendemmia 2023

The harvest Tenuta Montemagno 2023

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Article written in collaboration with Roberto Nantiat and Gianfranco Cordero, winemakers of Tenuta Montemagno

It was already understood since last 2022 that this would be a particular year for the cultivation and harvest of the 2023 grapes, remembered as a difficult year due to the extreme drought which compromised part of the vineyards, forcing some wineries to intervene on the plants and replant the cuttings in order to recover, in future years, what water scarcity has caused. But despite these warning signals, 2023 was able to surprise us again, for a strong variability of the climatic conditions that affected the cultivation starting from the winter and which continued until the summer.

Let’s summarize the situation with Roberto Nantiat the winemaker who, with Gianfranco Cordero, follows the works at Tenuta Montemagno, to understand the trend of 2023, with a focus on the harvest just terminated and on what the wines resulting from this harvest will be like.

Vendemmia 2023

“This is a particular vintage” Roberto says “but we could already understand it from how spring and summer were; from an extreme period of drought we moved to a semi-resolution during the months of June and early July, to return to another situation of stress due to the high temperatures reached from the beginning to mid-August”.

During this period, for about two weeks, the thermometer marked 40°/45° C with average night-time values always above 30° C. The effect on the plants was the blocking of photosynthesis and therefore the ripening of bunches. So on August 22nd, ahead of the traditional calendar, the Sauvignon harvest began.

“We decided to race against time to prevent these grapes, which are very sensitive to climatic conditions, from burning. Sauvignon, in fact, due to the strong heat can “burn” and produce oxidation which, in turn, could lead to a loss of those aromas that are very important for the varietal”.

The choice to carry out an early harvest was also dictated by the desire to maintain a good quality of the grapes, to the detriment of the volumes harvested.

uva

“At the end of August we had three days of heavy rain”, Roberto continues. “This restored the water balance of the plants. The grapes have started to swell again, the ripening has resumed its course, and the vegetation has therefore also regained the natural colour of the period; from a green with a rather dull brightness it returned to a beautiful dark green, a signal indicating the resumption of photosynthesis”.

Vendemmia 2023

From that moment on, the harvest resumed, first with Barbera grapes for the vinification of TM Brut and then with Syrah, used for the Violae label (blend of Syrah and Barbera). Syrah vinification shows a particularly intense colour, an interesting structure and, therefore, a good concentration.

During the month of September the harvest continued with the Timorasso, which reached perfect ripeness thanks to the heavy rains at the end of August, used for Solis Vis, and Nymphae.

“Now (mid-September, ed.), we are harvesting the Barbera grapes, destined for the vinification of the Austerum reds and Mysterium, that are offering the same quality as always with greater softness and freshness. Soon we will continue with the Ruchè grapes for Nobilis, while the harvest for Invictus, the Ruché made with a late harvest, will occur two weeks later”.

Summing up the 2023 harvest of Tenuta Montemagno, we can therefore state that it is characterized by reduced volumes, good quality of the harvested bunches and excellent conditions for winemaking.

cantina Tenuta Montemagno

Spring works in the Tenuta Montemagno vineyard and cellar

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Article written in collaboration with Roberto Nantiat and Gianfranco Cordero, winemakers of Tenuta Montemagno

2022 will certainly be remembered by all wine producers as a year of severe drought.

Similarly, 2023 will be remembered for being, at least in the first 6 months, a particularly bizarre year from a meteorological point of view. Past year’s drought lasted for the first months of this one to then suddenly change and bring the attention of winemakers and agronomists from scarcity to abundance of water in the soil.

In this article we will find out with Roberto Nantiat, the winemaker who, with Gianfranco Cordero, follows the works at Tenuta Montemagno, what happened between the rows during the spring on the estate and what was done to deal with the sudden abundance of water and to prepare the vineyard at its best for a season, the summer, which leads to the harvest.

The first part of spring 2023 was still marked by drought. A status that has its origins in the past year and which has persisted, except for some sporadic rainy and snowy events, throughout the winter and the first part of this year. Since May there has been a climatic inversion: from zero rain to 2-3 days of rain per week.

This reversal brings with it two potential consequences: one positive and one negative.

The first, as it is easy to imagine, solves the water problem; the abundant rains bring a lot of nourishment to the vines and these show a strong vegetation. The second, also easily guessable, is the possible presence of fungi (mainly downy mildew and powdery mildew), which caused by the very short time between one rainy event and the next, could become particularly strong and aggressive. Utmost attention therefore, with protective interventions to be carried out in the vineyard, such as the more orderly “distribution” of the shoots, so that a greater passage of air is created and the potential risks of taking root and growth of fungi are reduced.

Uva

Another rather unusual aspect that could require corrective interventions is always linked to the abundance of water and the consequent vegetative thrust of the plants which is shown with an evident luxuriance of the foliage.

This sign is definitely positive, but shows a slightly uneven growth of the shoots even at individual plant level.

This is the result of the stress suffered by the vines during the drought, when the shoots all grew with great difficulty; now, with the arrival of rainfall, the differences generated by this stress can be clearly seen, with some shoots stronger than others.

This vegetative inhomogeneity leads us to monitor the evolution of the season with great meticulousness, to plan in advance interventions in the vineyard, presumably at the beginning of August. Normally we already carry out the thinning of the bunches, so as to guarantee the right balance between the quality of the harvested grapes and the quantity; this year we expect an intensification of this operation which gives strength to the vine and to the ripest bunches and nourishment to the soil, on which the pruned bunches are left.

In the cellar we continued with the bottling of most of the red wines, while for the whites this activity was completed at the end of winter: Violae (blend of Syrah and Barbera d’Asti), Soranus (the Barolo of Tenuta Motnemagno), Mysterium 2019 (Barbera d’Asti Superiore) and Nobilis (Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato).

Invictus will soon follow, always Ruchè from Castagnole Monferrato, particularly decisive and structured, obtained by carrying out a late harvest of the grapes. Resting horizontally for 24 and 36 months, on the other hand, the TM Brut (Metodo Classico from Barbera grapes), whose “draft” was carried out in mid-late March.

The climate changes we wrote about in the first part of the article have had another positive response. While during the winter it was evident that the vegetation of the vineyard was two weeks early, now it can be seen how this condition has been reset; as a result, the harvest forecast could return to the more traditional deadlines, from the end of August to the beginning of September onwards.

We will therefore talk about this again in the next editorial, when we will have updates on the status of the vineyard during the summer and on the preparation or completion work for the 2023 harvest.

Timorasso

Work in vineyard and cellar: summer 2022

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Article written in collaboration with Roberto Nantiat, winemaker of Tenuta Montemagno

Tasting a good wine is the final act of a sublime love story. A story that connects man and nature, the passion for the cultivation of vineyards and the acceptance of this attention by nature. But how much work is there behind a glass of wine? It is a work that lasts months, sometimes years, if we consider the time required to obtain wines matured 3, 4, 5 years and even more.

Let’s continue the journey that began three months ago, to discover what summer 2022 reserved for the vineyards of Tenuta Montemagno and which works have been carried out this season, both between the rows and in the cellar.

We specify that this article was written with the harvest in progress; an early harvest, due to the particular weather conditions (as we will see later), started with the Sauvignon grapes followed by the Barbera grapes; in this case too the harvest will be deliberately anticipated, to give life to TM Brut, Tenuta Montemagno’s Classic Method.

2022 is destined to go down in history as a particularly stingy year of water. Few rains, indeed very few, which resulted in an extremely dry and difficult climate for the vineyards. This is why, in Tenuta Montemagno, we intervened with the ripping process, that is the working of the compact soil through a series of vertical cuts aimed at eliminating the risk of dry crusts on the surface and to facilitate water drainage in case of rain. The rains arrived, although not copious, in the second half of August and the ripping carried out in the vineyards helped to absorb the rainfall.

Another intervention carried out this year among the rows of some vineyards was an early thinning; this allowed to balance the vegetative-productive relationship, that is the balance between leaf mass and amount of grapes. The drought recorded this year avoided chopping operations, usually carried out to remove weeds between the rows of grapevines.

While in the vineyard we worked to facilitate the absorption of the rain that took a long waiting time, in the cellar we continued with the bottling that began in the course of spring. Nobilis, Invictus, Austerum and Mysterium passed from tanks to bottles, to leave place to the 2022 harvest.

Each season is important for the vineyards and for the harvest of their fruit. So, utmost attention is paid to nature, listening to it and observing its behaviors, its signals. Each year, then, has unique characteristics such that specific man’s work becomes, from time to time, necessary and of vital importance to reach a harvest and a final product that lives up to expectations.