Tenuta di Trinoro

Even the mix in Tenuta di Trinoro’s 2011 vintage suggests what kind of year this was, made of heat waves and drought. We decided to wait out the drought until each vineyard had reached its best ripeness. We screened the fruit, sprinkled leaves at night, turned the ground around the vines to keep them moving forward; the vineyards lost speed, then stopped; tracts of merlot grapes started shriveling and we went through the parcels cutting off the raisins several times in the continuing heat; we lost half of it before the rest made it to a late and sudden ripeness. We picked those good areas in 6 runs between the 4th and the 10th of October; this also involved days at the triage tables to separate and get rid of the raisins left in the clusters.

At the middle of the month, for one night, we had an extraordinary, long tempest that broke the spell of the weather, transferred us into Fall, dropped temperatures and started offering a state of fresher fruit to the cabernet franc grapes: they accepted, slipping out of near-death; when we picked them in the last ten days of October they came in great condition and exciting different modes of ripeness. Cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot followed, satisfied with the amount of sun they had accumulated during the season. Musts fermented slowly to the point that residual sugars are still being digested even in spring when we prepared the blend. Many wines were grandiose in one way or another, especially the startling array of cabernet francs; these we blended into a rich liquid.

Vineyard age: 20 years

Vineyard density: 10,000 vines/Ha

Vineyard altitude: 450-600 m asl

Yield per hectare: 18 Hl/Ha

Fertilization: None

Spraying: Clay, propolis, grapefruit seed extract

Harvest: Pickings of merlot from October 4th-10th, cabernet franc October 21st-31st, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot October 22nd and 23rd

Aging: 8 months in new French oak barriques, 10 months in cement vats

Production: 5,800 cases