This was an atypical year, perhaps unlike any ever registered. Winter was fairly mild and warm. The frost that arrived on 18‐20 April, the drought, the extreme heat that lasted for more than two months, all scorched the earth and the grapevines. For this reason, the leaf removal typically carried out before grape harvest was avoided; instead, the grapevines were left “untidy”, only slightly trimmed, to protect the fruit from the rays of the sun. At the end of August and the first ten days of September, rains came and the temperatures dropped drastically, all the way to the seasonal average.
In the second half of September, the Sangiovese grapes were harvested. There was less fruit, but the grape ripening was very good, even excellent in the final lots of Sangiovese, helped along by two important rains during September, which revitalized the plants and led to good ripening, including polyphenolic ripeness.
