TUSCANY. “Today in the vineyard it was 32.7°”. The image speaks louder than many words, on the first of September the mercury column remains above the 30-degree mark. We are in Montalcino, in the realm of Brunello. Donatella Cinelli Colombini is one of the ladies of great reds. In her DNA are experience, intuition, love. Her “Casato Prime Donne” is a 40-hectare estate, of which 17 are Sangiovese, with a winery for the vinification and aging in barrels of Rosso and Brunello. The cellar workers are all women, including the enologist, a unique feature in Italy. And from here Donatella has led the way in experimentation, 30 years ago, with wine tourism. Now a million-dollar business.
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Let’s start with the climate: Montalcino also has to anticipate the harvest. What is happening in the vineyard?
“We had a tropical season, very hot and abundant rains in winter, we entered the warm season with soil full of water, and with thunderstorms during the summer that dropped from 10 to 45 ml of water. A rather strange situation, because especially in July we were used to a very dry climate.”
What did this cause?
“We had a different ripening than usual, because the real ripening, which begins with the change in the color of the berries, veraison, is triggered by water stress that was not present, so the vines had a somewhat strange ripening.”
In what sense strange?
“Clusters not fully veraison, still in mid-August. Very small clusters and small, open berries. The strange characteristic is that there is a lot of skin, 10% above average. This is because it rained during fruit set, and the rain disturbed flowering. In local Montalcino jargon it is said ‘non smosta’, it has little juice. Malic acid has almost entirely disappeared due to extreme temperatures that did not drop even at night.”
Effects of excessive heat?
“The vegetative cycle is comparable to a pregnancy, if it starts earlier it ends earlier. And the bud arrived earlier. In the Montalcino area more exposed to the sea, which has more sun and warmer soils, ripening is very advanced. Not with us: we expect to start harvesting Brunello grapes around September 14.”
How will the 2026 harvest be, in terms of quality and quantity?
“The quantity is so small, 50 quintals per hectare, the grapes are there but the juice is scarce. The harvest is somewhat uncertain because the ripening is different. But the grapes are so healthy and intact that they required very few treatments, both in estates like ours that are organic, and in those with traditional methods. Even the stalk is well attached, there are no juice droplets around.”
Will this scorching summer be an exception or should we read it as the start of a trend?
“I read yesterday that studies have been done on El Nino, it is bigger than usual with temperatures 3 degrees higher in the Ocean, next year we will have the real effects with a lot of rainfall in Italy and Spain, where they are happy because it hasn’t rained for 4 years, while in other parts of the world there will be more drought.”
What is expected in viticulture?
“Those like us who use native grape varieties are advantaged because in their genetic makeup they have already experienced the Roman Optimum, the ice ages, the warm period of the Middle Ages, the cold of the early 1900s… The native grape variety already knows the variations and adapts, we have seen that it already knew how to behave.”
A sort of memory of the vineyard.
“That’s why you have to learn to listen to the vineyard, you can no longer cultivate as 30 years ago. When rootstocks that were not too vigorous and deep were sought, now they must reach deep because it rains heavily. Previously 8,500 – 9,000 plants per hectare were planned, now 4,500 because we give each plant a larger amount of soil, otherwise it can’t manage… the leaves must be kept away from the ground; before the vineyard looked like a stretch of hedges, today bushes because the aerial part shades the grapes. There are still colleagues who remove leaves around the cluster, in my opinion it is a mistake because exposing the grapes to ultraviolet rays is dangerous. We desperately try to capture water, we hoe continuously. For now we have benefited from the climate, before we didn’t have so many good harvests one after the other.”
How long will the harvest last?
“I think it will be quick because the soil is dry, you can walk and work well in the vineyard.”
A good thing also for wine tourists.
“Unfortunately with current regulations it is very difficult to do the harvest with tourists: they must be reported in advance to the labor office, separated from the rest of the people picking grapes, registered, ‘fenced off’… the fun ends. We hope that Tuscany will also adopt the Trentino regulation, also taken up in Veneto, to bring back the harvest as it used to be, for those who have small quantities of grapes a celebration with friends and family: Trentino has approved it. It is called ganzega.”
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