Diary of the harvest 2024

Today is the first day of harvest. We begin with the harvesting of the Chardonnay for the sparkling bases to create the Extra Brut and the Dosaggio Zero. The harvest starts slightly delayed compared to the previous year 2023: the favorable weather conditions this summer allowed a few more days for the bunches to ripen on the vine. They therefore arrive perfect, sweet and juicy. 

We continue in these first moments of harvest with weather that supports us, despite some early September rain. The harvested grapes are beautiful, ripe, turgid and fragrant. We have also begun the first harvest of Turbiana which, together with the Chardonney harvested in the very first days of the harvest, will come together to create the classic method sparkling wines.

The red grapes are also harvested in this first week of the harvest. These sweet grapes, which arrived in the cellar in perfect condition, will be vinified to become our Extra Brut classic method rosé sparkling wine. The freshness and acidity of this wine come from here. The climate is still mild in these first days of harvest, with a perceptible temperature range between day and night. The episode of rain that occurred yesterday did not ruin the harvest and for this reason we are confident in an exceptional year. 

On Monday we begin the harvest of Turbiana, the native vine for the creation of Lugana DOC. The grapes we are harvesting are good, well ripe and rich in sweet and fragrant juice. Everything seems to be going well. The weather is unstable, heavy rain showers slow down the harvest, but for the moment the grapes do not seem to suffer particularly. 

After a meeting with our campaign manager (who coordinates more than two hundred people who constantly work in the vineyard during the harvest, strictly manual in Ca’ dei Frati) we chose in which plots of our 300 hectares to begin the Turbiana harvest to make not only the Lugana I Frati DOC, but also the Brolettino (both 100% Turbiana) and the Pratto (a blend of Turbiana with Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc) for which overripe grapes are required on the vine. We therefore started the week with the harvest of these grapes for our most iconic DOC wines.

15 days have now passed since the beginning of the harvest and we have finally arrived at tasting and comparing the first musts obtained: our winemaker Carlo is choosing the best ones, constantly tasting and comparing them in the laboratory. Each place from which the grape comes has very specific characteristics that contribute to forming the aromatic bouquet of the future wine. We are therefore in the fermentation phase: despite the rather cool temperature these days, everything is going well in the steel barrels. 

The harvest of red grapes has also begun in Valpolicella: Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella. All three in different percentages according to the trend of the vintage – but naturally Corvina in greater quantity – will flow into the creation of our special Amarone della Valpolicella Pietro Dal Cero DOCG. After the rigorously hand-picked harvest, the grapes remain in our fruit cellar to dry. The bunches are particularly beautiful and sweet, the grapes dark and rich in anthocyanins which will give the wine a splendid ruby ​​red. In the photo the preparation of the boxes that will contain the grapes during the harvest. 

Here are the first bunches of Corvina harvested by hand in Valpolicella. The grapes are excellent, well preserved on the vine and ripened perfectly, thanks to a hot and clement summer in terms of rainfall. The grapes are soft to the touch and very juicy, sweet and very fragrant. Amarone promises to be a great vintage. The weather these days is rather cloudy with frequent more or less light rains which interrupt the grape harvest. Autumn arrived early, but the forecast improves towards the weekend. 

After a focus on Valpolicella, we return to the Lugana area. In the photo our boys check the presses and the progress of the work during the soft pressing of the grapes. The musts we obtain are free-run musts and musts derived from the very first pressings of the grapes, that is, only the best, tastiest and most sugary juice derived from the grapes themselves as soon as they are harvested from the vineyard. This system, inaugurated in 2020, allows us to press the grapes in the total absence of oxygen, thus avoiding any spontaneous fermentation or the development of bad aromas. Quality and its control are the order of the day, not only in these days of harvest.

The week begins again by proceeding with the harvest of the grapes in the surroundings of the company, in Pozzolengo and in the San Martino della Battaglia area: the most evident problem in this harvest is the rain which continues to intersperse for days, thus making the harvest more slow. We also work on weekends and Sundays to avoid ruining the grapes and anticipating bad weather. These days Turbiana is still being harvested, this time for Pratto which needs overripe, sweeter grapes for the late harvest that characterizes it. 

We have reached the last days of the harvest, with very unforgiving weather which constantly slows down the harvest. It almost always rains heavily in the morning: autumn has definitively arrived, making us forget about summer. For this reason the harvest proceeds without stopping even during the weekend, in good weather. The fermentations proceed as best as possible and regularly: approximately 10 degrees of alcohol are reached for the grapes harvested a few days ago, reaching 13/13.5 degrees when fermentation is complete (with variations of one degree or half a degree depending on the type of wine that is produced). 

Sun, sun, sun and more sun: the last days of harvest are characterized by a mild climate which allows us to harvest the last grapes at a faster pace. Turbiana, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are the types being harvested in this period, as overripe grapes for the Pratto in part and as dried grapes on the vine for the Tre Filer, our sweet wine which contains the last rays of the October sun. 

Last day of harvest for the 2024 vintage! 

The harvest ended today with the last few mild days, sunny yesterday and still rain today. However, we are extremely happy with the result: the fermenting musts have incredible aromas, a floral and fruity bouquet typical of our Lugana DOC which we now see in its development. A great year is expected to be discovered, in the meantime we await with great curiosity.

We celebrated the end of the harvest with a special ice cream right in our square dedicated to pressing: thus we united all our team members with big smiles, after so much effort! 

Once the harvest is finished, we begin immediately, at the end of October, with the harvest of our olives. The day we were given today is truly wonderful: sun and 22 degrees can only help the harvest! The olives are ripe and beautiful: an excellent year is expected for our pitted oil too. Manual harvesting from company-owned trees will continue for a few days. Our olives are multi-variety and this contributes to an aromatic and structural profile of greater final complexity. Furthermore, the procedure used for squeezing takes place completely without oxygen, precisely to leave the characteristics unaltered. 

We continue with the harvest of our olives to make Ca’ dei Frati Extra Virgin olive oil. In fact, after the harvest of the grapes in the vineyard, we proceed immediately between mid and end of October with the olive harvest. Also in this case the work is carried out entirely by hand, using vibrating beaters and the olives are then collected in nets at the foot of the tree. It’s a long and patient job, but the final product is worth all the effort.

The harvest of ripe olives continues in our owned olive groves. We have been passionate about oil and wine for generations and we are curious to hear what the new vintage of our EVO oil will be like. The olives we have collected are healthy and well-ripe and, after selection just as in the photo, they are taken to the mill to extract the oil with a totally inert process, designed by Igino Dal Cero, our winemaker.