Castel San Pietro Terme, 4th September 2019 – 2019 vintage is starting today with the collection of the first bunches of Sauvignon Blanc, for which Umberto Cesari can boast the certification “National Integrated Production System” (SQNPI), which attests to the sustainability of agronomic practices implemented by the company to protect its land and its vines.
The climate of 2019 vintage was quite fluctuating, cool and rainy periods alternated with sunny and warm ones. This trend has led to a phenological development of the vine very similar to that typical of the 1980s and 1990s: the maturation phases of the grapes are postponed by about 7-10 days compared to the past year (and to recent years) and phenolic maturation, responsible for the color and structure of the wine, is going hand in hand with the technological one, which instead determines the alcohol content. This gives us hope for a very balanced final product.
The climatic trend has resulted in a grapes production of 15-20% less compared to 2018 vintage; the quantity of balanced fruit, the sparse bunches and the small berries of this year are a guarantee of health of the grapes and will bring great advantages in terms of color extraction and phenolic components, both elements contained in the skins.
The postponement in the phenological development of the vine has also brought benefits to the early white grapes, which by refining the maturation at the end of summer, with lower temperatures, will give wines with very interesting aromatic components.
To monitor the correct development of the vine and the vegetative phases of the plants, the agronomic staff of Umberto Cesari made use of a system of state-of-the-art weather stations that allows to accurately detect parameters such as temperature, humidity, precipitation and other useful data to formulate hypotheses on the possible development of pathogens, in order to prepare only the strictly necessary phytosanitary treatments. The use of these control units, together with crop protection through Integrated Defense strategies, as well as biological and biotechnological defense lines, adopted in recent years, let Umberto Cesari earn, first in Emilia Romagna, the certification “Sistema di National Quality Integrated Production ”(SQNPI).
The certification is a point of arrival of a path of qualitative growth under the banner of sustainability that involves the entire production process and that the company has chosen to undertake since the late 1980s, once again proving to be a pioneer in the Region.