Dear friend,
Sometimes we forget one thing: wine is an agricultural product and as such is subject to the most unpredictable of variables, the meteorological one.
A determining aspect not only for the quality of the grapes, and therefore of the wine, but also for their quantity. The work of a season can be ruined in a very short time by a spring frost or a summer hailstorm. In these cases, always terrible, the signs are immediately visible and quantifiable. In the case of a prolonged period of drought, however, the evidence of the damage is less visible: this does not affect the quality of the grapes but significantly lowers the quantity produced.
The 2024 harvest was for us, and for many Sicilian producers, one of the leanest ever. The extreme drought that characterized first the spring and then the summer brought the quantities of rain to historic lows and therefore strongly influenced the production of grapes and not only. Just think, the last useful rain dates back to November 2023. It hasn’t rained continuously here for almost a year.
An elderly winemaker, a person with seventy harvests under his belt, told me that this was an unprecedented year, at least in his memory. Here in Contrada Buonivini the vines produced very healthy grapes but with small and light berries, concentrated in sugars, aromas and a lot of acidity. The vigour of the plants was very limited, the shoots were very short, the grapes were well present but the bunches weighed half the normal. Our yields this year were around 2,500 kilograms per hectare, about 2,000 bottles. An extraordinarily low quantity, for us the 2024 harvest was around HALF the average annual production.
Not to mention the calendar: the drought brought forward the ripening of the grapes like never before. We started the harvest on July 25th, with the harvest of Moscato from the “Fondo alla Palma” vineyard, grapes with a high sugar concentration that we decided to dry on racks in the sun for our sweet wine, Uvalsole. On the following days, July 29th, 30th and 31st, we completed the harvest of Moscato grapes for our “Muscatedda”. The following week, from August 6th to 8th, we harvested the Chardonnay for “Eureka”. The whites fermented spontaneously in a slow and constant way, the wines have delicate aromas and good freshness.
Immediately after Ferragosto, from the 16th to the 19th, we harvested the “Coniglio” vineyard and the remaining plots dedicated to “Rosanera”. Immediately following, exceptionally, the Nero d’Avola vineyards for our red wines: the grapes had already reached perfect phenolic maturity. On August 20th and 21st we harvested the “Parrino”, on the 22nd the “Don Paolo” and then on the 23rd and 24th the “Lenza Lunga” vineyard. We finished the harvest on August 26th with the “Archimede” harvest, more than a month earlier than even just last year. A harvest characterized by such low quantities that we finished the harvest work in just a few days. Fortunately, the Nero d’Avola are wonderful wines, with impressive acidity, even higher than the 2021 harvest. They are juicy, very fresh and full of mineral tension, salty wines.
In agriculture nothing is ever taken for granted, it does not tire because it surprises and in this sense each harvest presents itself differently. We are the ones who have to read and interpret it trying to do our best. Furthermore, we know well that if there were not this oscillation of conditions between one harvest and another, wine would be a standardized product, boring like many industrial drinks. Being artisans also means accepting this condition. At the same time I hope that the undeniable climate change we are facing does not lead to the continuation of this situation: without water there can be no life.
Thank you for reading, see you next time,
Pierpaolo Messina