La VendemmiaThe Italian Harvest
Up the boot of Italy, one pick date at a time.
Welcome to la vendemmia, Italian for the grape harvest. The pick date is one of the biggest decisions of the wine year. Once the grapes are cut, their balance is largely set: sugar, acidity (the mouth-watering freshness), tannin (the drying grip in a red) and flavor. Tonight’s wines, chosen and paired by Wine Hound, follow the harvest up the boot of Italy, a glass at each stop.
First pick: the hot south
The harvest generally starts where the sun is strongest: Sicily, Puglia and the southern coasts ripen fastest and often pick first. Even Sicily has a slow corner: on Etna, home of tonight’s Etna Bianco, altitude slows ripening.
Early-ripening varieties go first wherever they grow. Grapes for sparkling wine are also picked early, for their own reason: acidity still high, sugar modest, so the base wine (the still wine that gets its bubbles later) stays crisp and low in alcohol.
The balance sheet of a grape
Why wait at all? As summer runs on, two lines move in opposite directions. Sugar climbs. Acidity falls. Tannins, from skins and seeds, soften and ripen, and aromas shift from green and herbaceous toward ripe fruit.
Winemakers walk the rows, taste the grapes, and measure sugar and acidity. Sugar doubles as a forecast: yeast turns it into alcohol, so it sets potential alcohol. They pick when the balance suits the wine they mean to make: earlier for crisp whites, later for full, structured reds (structure meaning tannin and acid).
Campania waits for November
In Campania the calendar bends. Aglianico, the grape of Taurasi, is late-ripening and grows on hillside sites, so it is one of Italy's latest pickers, going as late as November even this far south. A full red needs ripe tannin and more sugar, and Aglianico will not be hurried. Variety and site can outweigh latitude.
Waiting is not free. Autumn rain dilutes the fruit and brings rot. Pick too early and the wine is thin and green. Risk against return, settled on one day.
North, hills and fog
The road runs north. As regions cool and slopes climb, picking generally slips later. In Tuscany, Sangiovese for Brunello ripens around Montalcino. Soave's Garganega and Gavi's Cortese are high-acid whites, picked while that acidity is still bright.
The Veneto also grows Glera, the grape behind Prosecco and tonight's Aperol Spritz. Bound for bubbles, it is picked while acidity is still high and before the sugar climbs far, for a crisp base wine. Recioto della Valpolicella takes another path: grapes are picked ripe, then dried, a method called appassimento. Water leaves, sugar concentrates, and the finished wine stays sweet.
The road ends in Piedmont, fog on the hills. Nebbiolo, the grape of Barolo, is late-ripening and picked for ripe tannin in mid to late October. Even then, Aglianico in Campania is often still hanging on the vine.
Tonight's route
The evening opens with an Aperol Spritz and prosciutto-wrapped grissini. Soave and Etna Bianco join the antipasto board. With the main (mushroom risotto, steak with truffle butter, a cherry salad) come Gavi, Taurasi, Brunello and Barolo. Recioto della Valpolicella closes with cherry panna cotta.
The menu, the wines and a short quiz are a tap away. No one is keeping score. Taste, ask the Wine Hound table anything, enjoy the harvest.
Four courses, eight pours
- StarterProsciutto-wrapped Grissini
- AppetizerAntipasto Grazing Board
- MainMushroom Risotto & Truffle Steak · Cherry Balsamic Salad
- DessertCherry Panna Cotta