It rained a lot in the winter with temperatures above seasonal averages, in fact it never went below 0°. Temperatures at the beginning of spring were high which led to early sprouting, in places 20 days earlier than normal. On the other hand the veraison and ripening of the grapes were delayed due to the frequent rain and lack of sun in July.
Another important aspect of this bizarre year was the winds, which were almost always Sirocco winds from Africa, very rarely the northerly Tramontana. The Sirocco brings humidity, rainfall and frequent storms.
The summer of 2014 was also strange because there was no North African anti-cyclonic weather system, which, in recent years, had made numerous incursions into Italy, bringing with it intense heat waves from the north to the south of the peninsula. This year the anti-cyclone only touched parts of southern Italy along with Sicily and Sardinia, leaving the centre and the north to the mercy of the damp and unstable weather of the “Atlantic corridor”.
This strange weather pattern forced us to drastically thin the sangiovese and merlot crop during the period when the grapes change colour (veraison) in August, because we realized that otherwise the grapes would not ripen.
Fortunately the weather in September and the first half of October was mild with no rain and the picking of the grapes began with the merlot on September 5th, grapes with potential alcohol levels which were lower than the previous years (but similar to those of 2013), less structured but not excessively so, and graced by an admirable elegance.
Given the possibility of postponing the sangiovese harvest until September 25th (due to the crop-thinning already mentioned), we managed to bring grapes of excellent complexity to the cellars by moving through the various vineyard plots in two separate passages and eliminating the bunches which, inevitably, showed signs of Botrytis.
The most satisfying grape varieties in terms of structure, size of the crop, and complexity were the cabernet and the petit verdot, because they ripened considerably later than usual and gave us wines of notable depth.
We finished the harvest on October 20th and, despite the difficulties and stresses which we experienced, once the malolactic fermentation was completed we saw we had wines of great finesse and elegance, with certain lots of truly distinguished quality.
