Harvest is over, malolactic fermentations completed, and the new wines are just starting to show more precise indications on their final personality. It’s time for big season-cleaning: all tanks are bleached, the fridge tubes, the press and the destemming machine are stored away for the winter, steel flanges have been bathed in caustic soda and wine pipes sanitized. The water jet cleaner is working overtime: winery floors and walls, drain inlets and catch basins are now spit and polished.

It’s also time for tasting and thinking, and this is something that brings more than a smile to my face this year.

It was good. Better: it was very good.
Downy mildew, which bothered me tremendously between May and June, caused only limited damages on grapes’ quantity and had no effects on quality. We had mild temperatures both in July and August and not one single day of rain. Also humidity gave us a break, and salt and wind did a great job cleaning and preventing further mildew to develop.

We harvested excellent white grapes: high acidity (I obviously mean “high” in a Sicilian way) and amazing aromatic concentration blessed us with round, fresh and tasty wines, with a distinctive saline aftertaste. All red grapes gave birth to fine and well balanced wines, many of which have all the potential for a long refining.
The new wooden tank has been my best friend: 30 hectolitres of Slavonian oak housed in rapid succession Alicante and Perricone for their fermentation, then a part of the Nero d’Avola for malolactic, and finally the Cabernet Sauvignon for refining. Here La Vota 2014 will stay a minimum of 10 more months before going to sleep downstairs in the big barrel.

Airplanes, trains and cars are back in my everyday life, and I started over with my travels a few weeks ago knowing we all at the winery did a good job, and completely trusting the wines to come.

If you want to read more about my personal judgement on
the 2014 wines, please click here to display or download the complete report.