A great wine is created, first and foremost, in the vineyards.
This is where the thousand daily gestures, performed with the utmost care and repeated endlessly over the years, seasons and days, make Agricola Marrone a top-level presence in the winemaking world.
WINTER
The vineyards of Agricola Marrone are tended all year round using two special tools. One works in the soil directly under the vines and the other between the rows of vines, to break up the soil and encourage the deep rooting of the vines.
The vine goes to sleep in winter and it is during this resting phase that essential pruning phase takes place. Pruning is carried out by an experienced professional who examines every vine, analysing its vigour and assessing its balance. Depending on his findings, he chooses one of the new branches, which bears the buds, and eliminates the others, deciding how many buds to keep.
Environmental protection in the vineyard is extremely important. No herbicides are used at Agricola Marrone; we adopt sustainable viticultural practices which combine respect for the environment and care of the vineyard.
SPRING
After its winter rest, the vine starts to grow. The buds appear, and the first suckering operation is carried out, working meticulously to free the vines from any useless and sterile shoots which will no longer compete with the fruit canes. This operation will be repeated three more times, until July.
In spring, the soil is turned over and aerated again. Operations carried out under the vines are very important at Agricola Marrone, the aim being to limit the growth of the grass on the surface and force the vine to push its roots deep down into the soil: this ensures that the plant is exposed less to the extremes caused by varying weather conditions.
In March and April 2019, some land which had been left to rest during the previous year was replanted with young vines. The old vines had been uprooted and the soil deeply ploughed before, to give the soil time to regenerate.
When the vines blossom, initial pruning limits vertical growth, facilitating the aeration of the vine and penetration by the sunlight.
SUMMER
Flowering ends, the first grapes are formed, fruit setting takes place and the time comes, between late June and early July, to eliminate the leaves growing next to the bunches, allowing the grapes to soak up the sun’s rays and enjoy exposure to the air, while being protected from direct sunlight. At the beginning of summer, each vine bears between four and ten bunches of grapes. At the end of July, a thinning operation (the “green harvest”), is carried out, leaving only the best bunches, those best exposed and least subject to rot, on the vine and throwing the others away, allowing greater concentration in those selected to ripen.
Within the space of a few days at the beginning of August, new lymph begins to flow through each row of vines – veraison –, the sudden alchemy that fills the grapes with colour and conveys all the relative properties. At this stage, Valentina Marrone and the consultants double their attention. Veraison and the halting of the growth of the shoots must be simultaneous. If the plant continues to grow, this will be at the expense of the concentration in the fruit, which must still be nourished until the harvest, in order to reach the highest possible quality and maximum concentration of sugars and tannins. Final thinning is performed to select the perfect bunches, eliminating those that are ripening more slowly and would lower the quality of the grapes at harvest time.
In August, the petioles (stalks) of the leaves and bunches become woody and the veins of the leaves change colour. This process of lignification is known as “agostamento”. The grapes become fragile and it is necessary to avoid working among the vines after ploughing the soil at the height of summer. The operations stop, the grass is allowed to grow and drink any water in the soil, preventing the vines from soaking it up and causing the tannins to dissolve.
AUTUMN
The quality of Agricola Marrone’s wines is pursued also thanks to a key element: the grapes are harvested only after reaching perfect maturity, which means:
- at aromatic level: if the state of a fruit can be classified in four phases, from “green” to “rotten”, we are concerned with the “fresh” state only.
- at technological level: essential because it touches the complex equation of the balance between acidity and sugar. Acidity conveys freshness and balance, contributing to youth and the potential for ageing, rare qualities reserved especially for great wines. The alcohol content, on the other hand, is not a decisive factor: it can range from 12.5% to 14%, and still maintain a good balance;
- at “phenolic” level: it concerns the structure of the wine. Only the quality of the tannins is important, not their quantity. The challenge is to obtain silky, creamy tannins, rich in density, which do not generate dryness or robustness.
The meteorological data are analysed every day and we monitor and compare different parameters: aroma, acidity and tannins. All the work carried out during the year is at stake at this stage: the grapes are picked only when perfect maturity is reached.
HARVEST
We continue waiting until the grapes are ready, until they have ripened perfectly. Under no circumstances can the logistics imposed by the harvest prevail over this philosophy. The start of the harvest can be decided all of a sudden, even during the night… Only rain can stop play…
At Agricola Marrone the grape harvest is carried out entirely by hand, in consideration of ripeness, carefully selecting the grapes. Altogether it takes a couple of non-continuous months. The decision may be made not to harvest the whole vineyard at the same time, or to suspend harvesting for several days.
The availability and flexibility of the grape-pickers are all important resources in this system. The grapes are harvested in the coolest hours of the day into 18/20 kg crates, taking care to handle the bunches carefully to avoid crushing them. The grapes are transported from the vineyard to the cellar on sleds. This minimises the movement of the grapes, which tend to bounce up and down due to the unevenness of the ground when transported on a trailer on wheels, resulting in their being squashed.
The grapes are immediately transferred to a chiller, where they are cooled to a temperature of 6°C over a couple of days. Climatic changes have meant that, in recent years, we have had to harvest the grapes with temperatures above 25°C. Cooling them in this way can prevent fermentation from beginning inside the crates, where we have no control over the situation. The aromas of such cool grapes remain intact, meaning that they can be processed more calmly and pressed with respect for quality.
The grape pickers carry out a first selection in the vineyard. Accustomed to the strict criteria imposed by Agricola Marrone, they discard any imperfect grapes. The second sorting of the bunches takes place on a low-speed conveyor belt, with four people in charge of examining the contents of the crates, unloaded one by one. At the end of the conveyor, the destemmed grapes are sorted once more, to ensure that only perfect grapes remain.