Once again this year we have reached the most anticipated time of the season for our estate: we are preparing for the 2023 harvest. Here in the winery the final preparations are finishing and the campaign team is organizing the schedule for the harvest of the different varieties between late August, September and October. As we do every year, we want to tell you about the vegetative progress of our vines to understand what lies ahead for this new harvest. Let's read what Settimo Pizzolato told us.
What is the condition of our vineyards?
In general, the viticultural year has been quite complicated, characterized from the very beginning by a lot of rainfall and high humidity, which, for our area in particular, means a potential increased risk of blight and powdery mildew attack. Thus, for both organic and conventional producers in general, we have seen a higher percentage, compared to previous years, of disease.
As for our vineyards, copper and sulfur treatments that have always been timely but clearly more frequent than last year, which we remember instead for the great drought. We have tried to defend the plants in a preventive way with precise and specific agronomic defense interventions such as defoliations, topping or even mowing the grass by creating a less humid habitat as possible.
The clusters, despite some losses due to downy mildew, characterize a year of great abundance and turn out to be healthy, large in size and we are confident that we would get excellent quantities of grapes.
With regard to our Piwi varieties, plants that are now in their sixth year of planting, at full developmental capacity, we can say that they have reacted well to the difficult year, especially the Souvignier Gris, which has already begun veraison and has healthy clusters with its bright pink color. In order to cope with the advance of the disease, we had to intervene with some sulfur and copper sulfate treatments, also because the robustness of these plants makes their own defense against the disease.
On our estate near the hills of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, we suffered a small hailstorm but the quantities are still abundant and the production of Glera is very good: we can say that there will definitely be a very good acidity and aromatic component. We expect a remarkable balance of Glera production, which has plants with an average age from 15 to 20 years, obtaining a very fragrant Prosecco.
In 2023, the issue of climate change is placed at the center: how are we experiencing it?
Climate change is having an impact on the vegetative cycle of the plant but not only that, also on the whole world of agriculture. This year, in some wine-growing areas, we witnessed an exceptional hailstorm, out of the ordinary, with hailstones as large as 19 cm and fortunately only slightly affecting our vineyards. Some of our grape suppliers suffered some hail damage.
For the past 2 to 3 years, we have been witnessing a succession of bizarre vintages: there are very close to each other years in which exceptional events happen, related to different weather events that are complicated to deal with. Last year, we experienced high heat and frost instead of April; this year, mild temperatures and exceptionally large hail. Climate change is having a serious impact related to different weather in each year so agriculture is suffering greatly as its evolutionary cycles change from year to year. The choices each producer makes from now on are critical to cope with these sudden changes.
What is the harvest forecast?
This year we are seeing a later harvest, reminiscent of the old vintages of yesteryear, shifted to September, compared to previous harvests that began as early as mid-August. We experienced a spring and early summer with mild temperatures that slightly slowed down the ripening of the plant. Also as a result of the high rainfall, irrigation to date has not yet been served.
Fortunately, on our farm, having had little hail damage and having preserved our vineyards as much as possible from blight and powdery mildew, thanks to the great work of the campaign team, the varieties are all in reasonably good health. Especially glera, the Prosecco variety, enjoys excellent vigor. We foresee that, thanks to the temperature ranges between day and night, typical of July, excellent acidity will be preserved for the grapes that we will use as sparkling and semi-sparkling wine bases, and that an excellent aromatic component will be preserved, especially in the Glera, enhanced by the temperature changes, which instead tends to be lost in very hot vintages. If the vintage continues like this ... it will surely be excellent!
Purchasing and new technology in the winery
Our winery is at the forefront of investments related to the latest technology in winemaking: this year, in order to work better and cope with the 2023 harvest, we replaced outdated machinery with state-of-the-art ones to be able to obtain the best possible wine from the harvested grain, and we also purchased new wine vessels, thus increasing our winery capacity.
Timeline - Predictions of the dates of our harvest
- From Aug. 22: PIWI Johanniter harvest
- From Aug. 28: Pinot grigio and Chardonnay harvest
- From Sept. 8: Glera harvest - DOC area
- From Sept. 18: Glera harvest deeded to Prosecco DOCG
- From Sept. 10/12: Manzoni Bianco / PIWI Bronner harvest
- From Sept. 15: Merlot and Cabernet harvest
- From Oct. 28: forecast harvest Raboso
The entire Pizzolato staff is ready to tackle this 2023 vintage!
