Vintage 2010 - Harvest News

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• Crop year

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  This vintage was without doubt one of the most complicated and challenging we have experienced at Guerrieri Rizzardi over the last 15 years. The winter was particularly wet, with frequent snowfalls and cold temperatures, which lasted until early March. Even in spring, particularly the month of May, the climate was characterized by slightly below average temperatures with frequent and abundant rainfall totalling 11 days out of 30. The end of July was marked by heavy rains, which lasted until August 5th. These rains then abated only to return again in early September, turning a complicated 2010 into a challenging harvest! By this stage, the “botrytis cinerea”, had manifested itself in several early outbreaks on the most compact of grape bunches. Also we began to notice that, in general terms, the average weights of the grapes were much higher than compared with recent vintages.

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  Bardolino and Valdadige

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  The harvest commenced on August 30th and forced us into the vineyards to operate by hand to remove the grapes most affected by “botrytis cinerea” and to a lesser extent, by sour rot.  This was time consuming and involved a lot of extra work. In the first week of September, we picked the white muscat grapes and chardonnay grapes, both displaying good aromas.  We followed these with the sangiovese, which was picked around mid-September. The grapes for Castello Guerreri Rosso were harvested between 21st and 24th September in small boxes. These grapes were made up of 60% rondinella, 30% corvina plus some other varieties. We picked the merlot on September 30th, slightly ahead of the previous vintage, and it was showing good sugar levels and intense varietal aromas. Between early October and October 20th we completed the harvest of red grapes, corvina at first and concluding with the white garganega grapes by October 20 th. As already mentioned, we had to work hard to bring healthy and mature grapes in our cellar, leaving on the vines all the grapes which we noticed had health problems. In the Bardolino area, we were able to pick grapes with great intensity of aromas and good freshness.  These grapes also contained a fair degree of sugar, which promises excellent balanced red and rosé wines, which will drink well in their youth.
  

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  Negrar

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  Here also, the harvest was long and complicated! The Amarone grapes were selected and collected between September 20th and October 14th. The grapes were larger and more compact than the last years. The harvest period was long, mainly due to interruptions for bad weather, and the selection of the grapes was as follows, 66% corvinone, 21% corvina, 10% rondinella and 7% barbera. On September 30th, we started to collect the grapes for the Valpolicella wines, starting with the corvina from the Pezza vineyard in Rovereti and followed by the merlot, between September 30th and October 2nd.

  From October 6th October we picked all the other vineyards in between some breaks which again were due to wet weather. Luckily we managed to finish by October 21st, because heavy rains fell between 24th and 31st of October and the grapes would never have been able to withstand more rain. The final grapes for the production of red Valpolicella were 25% corvinone, 23% merlot, 20% corvina, 12% rondinella and the rest other grapes. Despite the large size of the harvest we have sourced good quality of fruit. This is solely due to the hard and careful work throughout the year in order to limit production.  Consequently we achieved the main goal of bringing into the cellar ripe healthy grapes, which were well exposed to both light and air. The wines seem fruity, fresh and balanced wines which will be good and approachable at a young age. As to the dried grapes for the Amarone, it is too early to judge the features of this 2010 vintage. To date, end February 2011, all grapes are still drying in the “ fruttaio”.

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  Soave



• In Soave, due to the difficult mentioned weather conditions during the year, we had some health problem of the grapes, particularly with the chardonnay.  These problems were solved by a manual cut of the bad grapes and the chardonnay was harvested on September 6th. On September 28th we picked about a thousand wooden cases of garganega, from two vineyards planted about 15 years ago.  These vineyards are cultivated with pergola trellising system at the bottom of the Costeggiola hill.  The grapes were healthy, ripe and well exposed to light and air. Between September 29th and October 12th we completed the harvest of garganega, from younger vines up to the oldest vines of Costeggiola, planted between 30 and 50 years ago. This fruit forms the basis of our cru, Costeggiola. This year, we are very happy with the balance of our white wines of Soave, which express a marked varietal characteristic, accompanied by a pleasant freshness!
  

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