Sep 29, 2009
Natural Wine Making in Piemonte
Tomorrow I begin my adventure in natural wine making as I head to Piemonte to help make a wine from the noble Nebbiolo grape. Our flight leaves Oslo at a (way too early) 6:30 in the morning through Stockholm then on to Linate (Milano). Our first stop when we finally arrive in Piemonte Wednesday afternoon will be of course to drop off our bags, then immediately out to the vineyards to taste the grapes. We need to see how they are doing!
On Thursday morning, October 1st we will be up at 4:00 in the morning (again!) to prepare the area of vinification by building a temporary roof (picture a tent if you will) and we will clean and prepare the tanks which at this point I have to assume are made of cement or steel (I will fill you in on the details once I know). We will be harvesting and selecting the grapes by hand from two single-vineyards: “Felice” in Neive (harvesting to begin Friday the 2nd of October) & “Basarin” in Barbaresco (Friday the 9th of October). We will crush and the fermentation will occur spontaneously. We will do all of this and eventually bottle this wine without (hopefully) the use of sulfur.
I don’t know any other details other than the ones I have shared here. I am not the one who has organized this process, but have been fortunate enough to have been included in it. I hope to be able to update everyone on a daily basis with my natural wine-making process, but I can only assume that the farm we will be staying at will not have internet, and therefore my daily progress may have to be posted after the fact, which I intend to do, photo’s included!
Please check back here as I will try and post here as soon as technologically possible!
In the meantime, enjoy some photo’s of the “Felice” vineyard in Neive:
Very exciting! Have a great, educational time, have fun, and good luck!
Thanks Jonathan!!