How is artisanal wine made? How we select the wineries we offer!
Before I tell you how we choose the wineries we offer, I want to talk about how artisanal wine is made, what it is all about.
The craft wine is the result of an approach to the vineyard and the cellar with absolute respect for the environment and the end customer, without which it is not possible to produce.
How do you make artisanal wine, then?
If you want to know more click on this link. Artisanal wine is a product characterised by the scarcity of the product and the high quality of it, totally the opposite of the 80% of wine that you find around, massive production, as if it were a hatchback, and bargain prices or almost.
Now I will reveal how it is produced.
Artisanal wine producers
These producers have the great merit of treating each and every one of their bottles as if it were a daughter, with love and pampering right up to its release.
They do not seek subterfuge in the vineyard, some use the coppered sulphuris permitted in organic farming, within the limit of 4 kg per hectare. Its use is considered a respectful approach to the vineyard, but we do not tolerate more than 2 kg per hectare. Very little if you think about it.
It is used to counteract Downy mildew o Powdery mildew.
Most of the producers we select for you, however, do not even use coppery sulphur in very low quantities (imagine that many of them go heavy on it, 25 kg per hectare, to give themselves a reputation, but in reality they abuse it), they let nature take its course. They don't even need to irrigate, as they don't have to remove anything from the bunch.
Irrigation is not really the best in any case, it dilutes the body of the wine and impoverishes its aromatic range.
They then manually select the grapes that will end up in your glass, the yield per hectare is low, ranging from 60 Quintals per hectare to 20 Q of most artisanal producers.
How to make artisanal wine in the cellar
They don't even look for shortcuts in the cellar, they only use the yeasts present in the cuticle of the grapes and the indigenous yeasts of the cellar (I'll tell you where they are in a moment). They start spontaneous fermentation, giving the wine characteristics that are truly typical of the grape variety (and not those induced by selected yeasts) and a general feeling of authenticity. These are wines, the others, with chemistry in the vineyard, integrated pest management, selected yeasts and controlled fermentation, can easily be defined as wine substitutes.
What does autochthonous yeasts in the cellar mean? Well, they are those yeasts that are found in the cellar pipes, on the cellar walls, in the tanks or in the barrels, those micro-organisms that contribute to the life of the cellar ecosystem.
Where we find them
Before I tell you how we find them, let me tell you what happens once we have found them. We visit them several times over a period of 4 or 6 months, study them, try all their wines several times (it's really hard work, I admit), tasting them first from the tank and then bottled.
We are taken to the vineyard and told all about their idea of artisanal wine. Then we become familiar with their cellar and their winemaking philosophy. They really do make a great selection.
How do we find them then?
Well we document and then we travel. We find them on social networks, or on the internet. I would like to point out a site, Tannina.com really useful in this sense. We have known Annamaria Corrù, the site's director, for a number of years and have always been impressed by her passion for wine and wine stories.
Annamaria knows an impressive array of producers, interviews them, and like us, studies them closely, visiting them in the vineyard and tasting their wines. Since we met her, we often follow her blog and contact her for feedback when necessary.
In short natural wine, biodynamic wine or simply organic wine, long live artisanal wine and its producers.
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