Viticulture and winemaking

How to improve grape potential

The sommelier’s narrative — that variety and terroir determine the characteristics of the grapes — is true. Some add a few virtuous practices carried out in the vineyard. All perfectly correct. But with the same variety and terroir, which indeed exert an enormous influence, there are still many cards left to play.

As agronomists we have access to a vast and constantly growing body of studies and knowledge. We have the ability to influence, even once variety and terroir have been chosen, many aspects. Given that it is essential to start well in order to need to “correct” as little as possible, our corrective capacity is high: the conscious use of leaf removal, thinning, hedging, soil management, fertilisation, irrigation, fertigation and spraying allows targeted influence on acidity, sugars, polyphenols, ripening windows, skin thickness, juice volume, flower fertility, cluster compactness and sunburn.

Pruning

The relationship established in agriculture between a person and a plant is a symbiotic one between two organisms. Symbiosis is the association between two or more individuals in which both benefit from shared life, or one benefits without harming the other. In this light, the term I prefer to capture the spirit in which pruning should be practised sits well: respect.

I have no interest in romantic speculations about love for plants, or in imagining feelings in vegetable beings — I find it even slightly diminishing, a way of “humanising,” to their great disadvantage, beings that have very little of the human or animal about them. The point is different: modelling a living being without considering that vessels, hormones, equilibria and defences are actively at work within it is anything but clever or practical. Everything that does not know and does not consider these processes inevitably produces deviations from optimal cutting outcomes.

Despite the many practitioners who claim to perform it, poorly executed pruning remains far too common — in viticulture as in olive cultivation, not to mention the daily damage wreaked on urban trees. Branched pruning of the vine, polyconic vase of the olive, wood of respect, pollarding, drying cone, vessel path, crown buds, esca disease: these remain beautiful words found online or heard in passing, until real knowledge and the ability to interpret plant form and function stand behind them. There are no perfect training forms or cutting techniques; the old rule of “espalier always and everywhere” for the vine does not hold, and in olive cultivation the choices of spacing and training form have multiplied rather than narrowed. The only solution is to evaluate every aspect, leaving none out.

Natural wine

Increasingly fashionable, natural wine rejects the conventions of classical oenology and offers a new sector, still not well defined but growing exponentially. It was needed: it is a breath of fresh air attempting to overturn the rules of a style of winemaking that is sometimes homogenising and insufficiently respectful of the initial product. The “enologically perfect” wine frequently makes compromises: stability, brilliance, colour and softness obtained at the expense of body, complexity, aromatic intensity. Natural wine is an agreement between producer and customer to avoid many of these compromises: this is its greatness.

But among the countless products on the market there are vast differences, many different styles, encompassing very interesting wines and wines that, in my view, are not acceptable (de gustibus non disputandum). In the worst cases the poetic licence of natural wine is misapplied, and the wine presents faults that are not the result of rejected compromises but of winemaking errors: excessively high volatile acidity, advanced reduction, casse. Many volatile molecules considered responsible for olfactory faults — even without wishing to call them “faults” in a renewed vision of wine — share one characteristic that is hard to contest: beyond a certain threshold of presence, they make any wine identical to any other.

Care, then, that the fight against homogenisation does not slide into an even more pronounced homogenisation. I am for a natural wine that respects the characteristics of variety and terroir without compromise, but with an excellent bouquet and an extraordinary taste — resulting from the expressive freedoms that take us outside the classical canons of clarity and colour.

Science and legends

Should a vineyard be irrigated? Should olive trees be pruned every year? Should white wine be drunk young? Does barrel ageing in oak mask varietal character in a red? Is a surface film on wine always negative? Is a sulphurous smell a fault? Should corked bottles be stored horizontally?

Science, technology and culture in the agricultural and wine world are now so extensive that in reading and discussing them with various actors, one easily finds contradictory answers to the same questions — and often none of those answers is wrong. The truth is that every variety, vintage, growing area and cellar has its own potential, to be identified and exploited for what it is. That is the only way to achieve excellent production. Never the same answer for two different vineyards.

How I work with a winery

I work primarily with estates in the Salerno area and Campania: vineyards in the DOC appellations Cilento, Castel San Lorenzo, Costa d’Amalfi and the IGT Paestum, with indigenous varieties such as Aglianico, Fiano, Greco, Falanghina, Sciascinoso and Coda di Volpe. I also take on projects outside the region when the context merits it.

A typical consultancy operates on two levels: vineyard and cellar. In the vineyard I handle replanting choices, spacing and training form, the annual calendar of cultural operations, crop protection management, phenological monitoring, and harvest decisions. In the cellar, I manage the technical direction of the vinification process, the choice of vessels (steel, wood, terracotta), ageing operations, and optional support for certification.

My direct experience as both agronomist and winemaker — as technical director and cellar hand in Italy (Tenuta Fontana, Sannio and Aversano area), in Albania (Shkodër, Kallmet variety) and in Cape Verde (Fogo, volcano wine on Spanish and Portuguese varieties at 1,700 metres above sea level) — allows me to read different contexts without imposing the template of what I have seen before.

Frequently asked questions

Where do you operate?

Primarily in the Salerno area and Campania: DOC Cilento, Castel San Lorenzo, Costa d’Amalfi, IGT Paestum and IGT Campania. I also have direct experience outside the region and abroad — Albania (Shkodër, Kallmet variety) and Cape Verde (Fogo, 1,700 m). For assignments outside Campania, contact me by email.

Do you cover the vineyard only, or the cellar too?

Both: vineyard (replanting, training form, cultural calendar, crop protection, harvest decisions) and cellar (vinification direction, choice of vessels, ageing, optional certification support).

Do you advise on natural wine?

Yes. I am for a natural wine that respects variety and terroir without compromise — but without mistaking winemaking faults (excessively high volatile acidity, advanced reduction, casse) for “style.”

Do you work with new plantings and replantings?

Yes: variety selection, rootstock, spacing, training form, soil management system — decided for the actual vineyard, not from a standard protocol.

How much does agronomy actually matter for the final wine?

A great deal. With the same variety and terroir, leaf removal, thinning, soil management and irrigation influence acidity, sugars, polyphenols and ripening window. “Wine is made in the vineyard” is true — just less romantic than the way it is usually told.