by Elisa Cavazza

Summer is one of the most important moments in the Cavazza vineyards; today we will explain why.

The scorching heat, sun, poor rains, burns: summer is hard even for our vineyards! Did you know that the sun not only harms our skin, but also grape clusters? Unfortunately, there are no sun creams to protect them, but as always nature and the experience of Cavazza’s agronomists help us avoid damage to the grapes.

Precisely in this period  ̶  between the end of July and the beginning of August   ̶  when the blazing sun risks damaging our future harvest, we carry out what is technically called leaf removal in the vineyard. This practice is part of green pruning, which allows you to control vine foilage, while maintaining a balance between the surface of the leaves and grape production. By carrying out leaf thinning, you skilfully cut the vine leaves, thus improving sun exposure. In the same plant, north-facing clusters are left more exposed because they receive less sun thus this allows better phenolic ripeness of the grapes. While the south-facing bunches are left more covered: the soil of the Berici Hills, with its white limestone outcrops, reflects a lot of sunlight so this stratagem allows us to avoid the risk of burns.

Always on the issue of green pruning, in this same period we also perform cluster thinning. This is increasingly used by wine companies like us, who aim to achieve the highest quality for their wines. As a result of this, our agronomists will restore the balance between vegetative growth and grapes produced by the plant by removing some of the clusters from the vine to improve ripening in the remaining clusters, which will therefore have greater nourishment.

Veraison marks the beginning of grape ripening and we can easily recognise it because the bunches slowly begin to change colour. At first, all grapes are green, but at this point white berry varieties acquire a yellowish hue and become translucent, while red berry grapes take on red or purple nuances. Some old sayings say that veraison precedes harvest by 60 days, but this is not always true: at the Cavazza winery, for example, we leave the grapes on the vines the right time for them to ripen properly so that we can always offer you the very best of our wines.

Share your pics with

#cavazzawine