Vintage 2008 - Harvest News

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• September saw the beginning of the harvest for Guerrieri Rizzardi, a few weeks later than our 2007 harvest. A brief report now follows outlining our results from the different wine regions/ appellations in the Veneto.

  Valdadige and Bardolino: The Chardonnay harvest began in our Dolcè vineyard in Valdadige on September 16th - two weeks later than the previous 2 years: September 8th in 2006 and August 31st in 2007, respectively. The harvest then continued with our Tocai Friulano grapes in Cavaion and Cortese grapes in Bardolino. September 20 th saw the selection of grapes to be dried for the production of our Castello Guerrieri Rosso wine. The final result was a blend of Corvina (75%) and Rondinella from several old vineyards in Bardolino and Cavaion. Harvest continued with the picking of the Sangiovese, Corvina and Rondinella grapes from the youngest vineyards in Cavaion. These grapes were picked at an early ripening stage in order to preserve the fresh and fruity aromas which are very important for the crafting of our Rosé wines. After a short break between October 2 nd and October 15 th , we then harvested the red grapes of Bardolino, ending with our highest quality Corvina grapes from our Vignai and Cà dell'Ara vineyards in Cavaion. The cooperative weather (no rain!) helped us to harvest in an organized fashion. We also decided, due to these favourable meteorological conditions, to extend the picking of our Corvina grapes in our Dògoli vineyard. With its high quality soils, the resulting grapes were very healthy and rich in sugar. Lastly, harvest ended on November 6 th with the picking of our Garganega grapes in Cavaion. Overall, 2008 was a very good vintage in Bardolino for the red wines while being a bit unusual for the rosé wines as the sugar levels were very high in the grapes when compared to the last 5 vintages. In this case, by picking early, we seem to have good results!

  Valpolicella: The first grapes harvested from this region were selected to be dried for our award-winning Amarone wines. The harvest started on September 17 th in the following order of varieties: Barbera and Sangiovese, followed by Corvina, Rondinella and Corvinone. The highest quality grapes in 2008 were Corvinone from the Pigozzara vineyard. This vineyard, which was planted in 2000, was thus selected for the 1 st time for its use in our Amarones. We do not use any grapes from vines younger than 5 to 7 years. We selected approximately 15.000 bins in 15 days, with a great quality from all of the grapes! On October 1 st we picked the Merlot grapes. This is the first time we are cultivating this grape variety in Valpolicella in October (vines planted in 1999). We waited for perfect grape maturation in order to avoid the risk of green notes in the aromas of the resulting wine. Between October 10 th and October 15 th we harvested the grapes from our younger vines. After October 20 th , we picked Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella grapes, all vines trained in the double pergola system in our Pojega vineyard. This vineyard's harvest ended by November 7 th with grapes going through the Ripasso winemaking process for our Pojega single vineyard wine. 2008 is a great vintage in Valpolicella: we have had excellent results from all our wines. We await the end of the drying process for the Amarone grapes, but so far the grapes, in the drying rooms, look fantastic!

  Soave: The harvest started in Soave with the picking of our Chardonnay grapes. This variety now encompasses 20 to 30% of the blend of our Soave wines. Harvest for these Chardonnay grapes began on September 17 th , one to two weeks later than the 2006 and 2007 harvest. Next, we continued with the grape selection for the drying process for the Recioto di Soave: which is crafted from Garganega grapes grown from an old pergola trained vineyard. Trebbiano di Soave, was then picked on September 24 th and Garganega grapes, from the youngest vines, were picked on October 27 th and 28 th , respectively. We then waited for a very advanced maturation level from the oldest pergola trained vines from the Costeggiola vineyard which were planted between 1960-1980. These grapes are the essence of our Costeggiola single vineyard Soave wine. In conclusion, in Soave, 2008 has been a very late vintage, but we have been positively surprised by the quality of our oldest vines of Garganega, which should produce a very complex wine!

  
  
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• Vineyard Report

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  NEWS FROM THE VINEYARDS - July 11 th 2008
  
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  At the end of harvest 2007 (in Bardolino - 13th of October (Dògoli Vineyard), in Valpolicella - 4th of October (Pojega Vineyard)  and Soave - 9th of October (Costeggiola Vineyard)), we began the pruning of  the vines which lasted from November 2007 to the end of February 2008.  The weather during the first three months of 2008 was quite normal with a few rainy days.By March 10th, we ended the “binding” of the vines in our Pojega Vineyard with Rondinella vines, which was one of the last vineyards harvested in 2007 (October 1, 2007).After the first sign of bud-break, work in the vineyards continued with the suppression of the double buds. In certain very productive vineyards, we also reduced the shoot numbers according to the production objectives. We tried to concentrate this operation fairly early in the spring, when the shoots were 5 to 15 cm long and when the clusters were already visible.The operation of removing the side-growths from the vine principal shoot, is done nowadays with the goal of controlling the vine’s vegetative growth. This procedure was done just before the flowering phonologic stage, between the end of April and May 23rd. The months between May and June, had been particularly rainy which resulted in the slowing of the vine flowering: the flowering started May 28th and ended around June 9th for all the red grape varieties. With the cool temperatures and all the rain, we in turn, are expecting to harvest quite late.  The abundance of rain created a deposit of water in the soil, which will probably be helpful during the hottest days of July and August.We completed the shoot reduction by June 6th.  We then started the summer hedging, with a cutter bar. The summer edging is done by machine in the cordone speronato and simple guyot trained vineyards, which usually starts after the end of the flowering. By cutting the long vertical shoots, we want to maintain a good balance between leaves and fruit and to have a better distribution of the nutritive substances created by the leaves. By having a better bunch exposure, the vines reach an ideal height, where the canopy should be cut, according to the distance between the rows and according the height of the cordon fruiting wire. We usually do 2 summer edgings per year: in 2008, we did the first one between June 6th and June 16th (at the end of the flowering) and the second, in the first week of July (during bunch closure). After the second edging, the climate was warm and dry, even if sudden storms can now and then bring some water: the vines grow less and until just before the harvest, we in turn will not do any edging.During the summer months, we sprayed vines in order to prevent the downy and powdery mildew (oidium). We used the Bordeaux mixture and began the process on May 5th 2008. We sprayed 10 times with sulphur and copper and usually spray between 10 and 13 times. We stopped the spraying process approximately 30 to 40 days before harvest in order to avoid pesticide residues on the grapes.
  
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