Vineyards Magazine

The harvest began at the Bolgheri estate with the youngest Sauvignon Blanc vineyards. A late year, but it promises to be high quality.

 

The 34^th harvest of Ornellaia began last Monday and, as usual, the first grapes to be picked were the youngest Sauvignon Blanc vineyards, while for the reds we will have to wait until the beginning of September.

The Estate Director Axel Heinz commented: “Up to today, the weather of the 2019 growing year has been a ‘roller coaster’. After a particularly cool spring, the start of growth was delayed for over a week, and this delay continued until the flowering, in the first days of June. Immediately afterwards came a very hot June and July, among the warmest and driest in recent history, with substantial rains at the end of the month that interrupted the long period of drought. Veraison has since completed in all the vineyards and harvest has begun“.

He continued: “It is still early to make a prognosis on the vintage’s quality level, and the weather conditions of the second half of August and the month of September will certainly have an effect. Meanwhile, we can confirm that this harvest is a late one; we started with the younger Sauvignon Blanc vineyards that go into production this year, while for the other whites we will begin harvesting between the last week of August and the first of September. We will wait until the beginning of September to harvest the reds, between the first and second week, but everything bodes wonderfully”.

 

At Ornellaia, enthusiasm for the harvest is quite visible, once picking started with the Sauvignon Blanc, an important variety for the winery and part of Ornellaia Bianco and Poggio alle Gazze dell’Ornellaia, the two white wines produced by the estate with the same attention to quality as the well-known red wines.

 

“We realized more and more that there’s space for intriguing whites if you are selective and choose the right sites,” confirmed Heinz.

In 2002, production of the single-variety Sauvignon Blanc “Poggio alle Gazze” ceased altogether. However, Axel Heinz’s intuition upon arrival in 2005 led to a change of heart with respect to the estate’s white wines, and the first vintage of the new “Poggio alle Gazze dell’Ornellaia” was released in 2010 (2008 vintage). Several years of continuous research and development led to the launch of Ornellaia Bianco (2013 vintage).