Our Harvest 2022

While in the winery, our cellarers and winemakers are busy getting the best out of the freshly harvested grapes, we tell you about the first results of this new and exciting harvest season.
Our harvest officially began on August 16 with the picking of white grapes from hardy grape varieties, the PIWI. Some white PIWI grapes were harvested earlier than the other varieties, both by our own choice in order to enhance their aromas and freshness and to preserve their acidity and be able to process them more carefully in the winery, as we were not engaged in other harvests.
Next, we harvested Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay grapes, and starting on August 29 we were busy harvesting Glera grapes in the DOC area that will give birth to our wines Prosecco DOC. Great attention, like every vintage, also goes to our Prosecco DOC sparkling wine without added sulfites, whose grapes are hand-picked and carefully selected, allowing us to obtain a product of the highest quality. In order to preserve the quality of the chilled must we will activate the first and only fermentation as needed in order to offer our consumers a sparkling wine absolutely without added sulfur.

The Glera clusters were slightly smaller in size than last year but more sugary and a beautiful deep yellow color thanks to a warm summer sun. Anticipating the harvest they were well balanced with optimal pH and beautiful acidity.
In the small plot located in the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG area, however, the grape harvest started later with beautiful acid balance, well ripened grapes and great mouthfeel expression.

The year of climate change: act now!

2022 is definitely the year in which we experienced the effect of climate change: torrid weather and little rainfall resulted in bunch development and an early grape harvest almost two weeks earlier than the average harvest in previous years.
The weather pattern in the summer of 2022 was very dry and very hot, and promptly we intervened only with relief irrigation continuing until August, the month in which the usual rains arrived. Thoughtful irrigation resulted in higher than expected yields per hectare.
So an early vintage, but by anticipating the harvest we obtained fresher and fruitier grapes, a very nice vintage with very interesting grapes!
Drought and flavescence were the major problems of this vintage: this vine disease was well controlled with organic products. Almost no downy mildew and a well-controlled powdery mildew through timely sulfur given at the right time.

Novelty and experimentation: beyond organic

Toward the end of August, we harvested the PIWI red grape varieties that will make up our NOVELLO PIWI 2022, blend of three resistant varieties: Cabernet Cortis, Merlot Khorus and Prior N, obtained by the carbonic maceration method.
We also harvested the red grape varieties: as every year, the last variety to be harvested was Raboso, a late variety with which we produce our Malanotte DOCG; collection that will probably take place around October 20. But we will tell you about that soon, too!
One of the innovations this year is to have differentiated the harvest of Sauvigner Gris PIWI at different distinct ripening times to understand the great potential of this grape variety. We are verifying and experimenting with the richness of this grape variety with different winemaking objectives. We have also carried out micro vinifications of the other PIWI grape varieties at various times to have a greater awareness of the potentials of these varieties.

Timeline - The dates of our harvest.

- Aug. 17: harvest Pinot Grigio and PIWI Johanniter
- Aug. 22: harvest Chardonnay
- From Aug. 29: harvest Glera - DOC area
- From Aug. 29: harvest PIWI reds
- From Aug. 30: harvest Pinot Noir
- Sept. 6: harvest PIWI Souvignier Gris - experimentation sparkling wine base
- Sept. 12: grape harvest Manzoni Bianco / PIWI Bronner
- September 15: grape harvest PIWI Souvignier Gris - still base experimentation
- From September 19: grape harvest Glera - DOCG area
- From September 21: grape harvest Merlot and Cabernet
- From October 20: grape harvest forecast Raboso