Collecapretta Harvest Report – 2021 to 2023
The 2023 vintage was terrible for us. We lost 70% of our harvest due to a very aggressive downy mildew that attacked our vines. In May and June 2023, it rained every day, creating the humidity that leads to the spread of this pathogen. We tried to combat it with some copper and sulfur treatments and with a defoliation operation to ventilate the plant, but all this was not enough to save the vines. Even in the wines, we found an imbalance during the aging period that we usually do not have. We waited until May for bottling when we realized the wines were finally ready.
The 2022 vintage was wonderful. We had an extraordinary production, and the vinifications all went very well. A balanced vintage thanks to the amount of rain we had during August, which diluted the sugars, creating very balanced, refined, and elegant wines.
The 2021 vintage, although good in terms of production, was very, very hot, which meant that the sugars within the fruit were very intense, causing problems in vinification due to residual sugars present at the end of fermentation. We had to forgo the release of several labels, including Vigna Vecchia and Merlo Nero. As for the other whites and our Sangioveses, it was actually a very favorable year for presenting a strong and present identity of the grape variety.
Regarding curiosities:
The Malvasia dello Scarparo is a vineyard we purchased in 2016, adjacent to ours, and which had been abandoned by its owner. Seeing these old Malvasia vines while we were in our vineyard, we fell in love with them and decided to purchase them to bring them back into production. This small vineyard belonged to the village shoemaker, who in our dialect is called “scarparo.”
The first Barbera plants were planted by my dad’s grandfather after returning from Piedmont after the military. For this reason, dad decided to dedicate the Galantuomo to him, which was his nickname.
We are fortunate to have very old Trebbiano Spoletino plants thanks to the choice made by grandfather Egidio, who did not accept the government’s invitation to uproot this grape variety in exchange for money. Some plants are over 90 years old.
. . . Beatrice Mattioli
