Finally we are done with the Dolcetto picking, pressing and racking. We have now started barbera and the vineyard we decided to start with is Larigi.Larigi is one of our oldest vineyards, it was planted by my grandpa Giovanni in 1948, and the vines still look healthy and in good shape...just like baby vines.
The production is always very limited, not just because of the age, also because we do a drastic green harvest in July-August to reduce the yield perhectar.
Since we had a very hot and dry summer, the grapes look really really healthy, in some spots even a little bit dry, they almost look like raisins, which tells us that the plant has been suffering a bit from drought (see pictures below)
The picking is done by hand and it usually takes a while because you have to look carefully at every grape and at every single berry to make sure there are no damages, and if see any, you pull the berry out and you throw it away, but this year we were picking as fast as superman, no need to check, Larigi was perfect!
Plus we had the supervision of Mr. Talin, 85 years old (and pictured below), our oldest but fastest picker of the cru. This is the first time he is not picking because of some health problems, he has been work ing the harvest with us for 70 years and he knows every single vine one by one, I’m sure he has names for all of them!
Once all the grapes have been harvested we took them to the crusher-disteammer, and big surprise: 25,5 brix sugar, this will be an other big juicy wine.
Once Larigi is totally picked, we will move on to our regular barbera vineyards, and then soon, the nebbiolo.
