Luca’s notes from the cold month of January

The cold month of January was spent pruning our vines in Caerano and going back and forth with our designer on Skype, often all day long, discussing our packaging, labels, and capsules for the wines.

We’ve been managing a vineyard in Caerano for two years now. It’s an old-school growing site and that why we decided not to use nylon binding. Instead we used reeds (called strópe in our dialect) that we took from old plants left to us by my grandfather, who used them to bind the canes.

Call it nostalgia if you like… the reeds make me think of the time when I used to work in the vineyards with my father and my grandfather. I’d follow them between the vines with the bunch of reeds they had prepared especially for me. I’d get mad because no matter how hard I tried, I could never manage to bind those stupid little branches!

In that same vineyard, you still find ancient trellising techniques. In our dialect, the iron wires are called tarnéi.

On the coldest mornings, we had to go back to the house to warm up our hands and our spirits. Sometimes a hot coffee can give a boost to your morale and to your tired muscles.

Not even the snow could stop us!