The Italian vineyard in good health, waiting for the harvest, the words of the winemakers

It is still early to make budgets and forecasts, which could turn out to be risky, because the harvest will only get underway in a month, but the feeling, widespread among the main winemakers of the Belpaese heard by WineNews, is that so far the trend in the vineyard does not it could have been better, and if the weather is mild in the last two weeks before the harvest, here we can speak, really and with knowledge of the facts, of a splendid year, net, but it could not be otherwise, of some event linked to hail and inclement weather, which especially in the North East have plagued, even in recent days, hundreds of hectares of vineyards. Riccardo Cotarella, president of Assoeonologi, is cautious about the situation of the Italian vineyard and recalls that the quantitative balance will come later, from the joint analysis, for the first time, “with the Unione Italiana Vini, but it will certainly be a lower harvest than last year. As far as quality is concerned, the trend is more and more like a leopard’s spot: on average, the vintage looks good, but there are areas where the weather has left its mark”. According to Franco Bernabei “the rains are favorable for a good harvest, late compared to last year, by a fortnight, the vegetation is beautiful, the vegetation is beautiful, I am confident”. Beppe Caviola’s vision starts from afar, “from a winter full of rainfall, followed by a cold and rainy spring, which delayed the vegetative cycle of the vine. The beginning of summer was hot and dry and the result is that the quality of the grapes at the moment is excellent. For Emiliano Falsini “the vineyard is fine, it is an interesting year: after a difficult spring in May, it is now up to the companies to adopt the right agronomic practices”. Carlo Ferrini is perhaps one of the most enthusiastic, defining the trend in the vineyard so far, “one of the best I have ever seen: cold in winter, rain, so the flowering, so today I find nothing negative. Graziana Grassini speaks of “a vintage that looks exceptional, but difficult because it was not easy to contain plant diseases, but in terms of quantity and quality, we can speak of an excellent vintage”.