Le Cupole tells the story of the 2020 growing year
While the gran vin Tenuta di Trinoro will keep the world waiting for another year.
“On the 26th of September, we finally had a break in the weather and the cold arrived. The deeper colours of autumn became visible all around and the sky cleared. On the 30th, the vines dried off and harvest began.”
These are the 2020 harvest notes of Andrea Franchetti (who passed away last December). The growing year at Tenuta di Trinoro opened with a normal spring, followed by a summer that brought heat spells and a week of rains in late August, and finally a September that gifted grapes with optimal ripeness. The estate vineyard team precisely followed the progress of the grapes right up to the harvest, ensuring optimal quality.
All this took place in Sarteano in the Val d’Orcia, in the south-east corner of Tuscany, one of the world’s most intriguing and mesmerising places, on a wine estate that has always successfully imprinted its own distinctive signature on its wines, recognised across the globe.
The 2020 vintage saw the bottling of the entire Tenuta di Trinoro range, but on a different calendar this year. Tenuta di Trinoro 2020 will spend another 12 months in the cellar, before its release in spring 2023. In the lead up to this, its younger sibling – Le Cupole 2020 – tells the story of this growing year.
As Andrea Franchetti used to say, “con la luna di febbraio il vino diventa vino,”or “with February’s moon wine becomes wine”. This is the moment of the winemaking year when wines from the individual vineyard parcels are tasted, to select those that best express the character of Le Cupole. Fermentation takes place in steel vats, followed by ageing in once- and twice-used oak barrels, and finally blending and further ageing in concrete vats.
Le Cupole 2020, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot that can vary from vintage to vintage, possesses, in the words of estate director-winemaker Calogero Portannese, “a vibrant life-force, harmonious complexity, and silky elegance,” a description that can only make us wonder what awaits us with gran vin Tenuta di Trinoro 2020.
Vineyards Magazine 