(ANSA) - After predicting that 2005 could be an exceptional year, wine experts are now backtracking and saying that the best wines will come from those vines which received the best care.
According to Riccardo Cotarelli, one of Italy's best-known wine experts, "the 2005 harvest stands out because the differences in quality do not depend so much on the area of production or even the vineyard as much as the individual vines."
"Only those vineyards which paid the most attention to their vines, trimming their leaves and using the best disease prevention measures, will be able to produce exceptional results," he explained. Quoted on the winenews.it website, Cotarelli added that
"in general, the best results this year will come from the grapes which matured early, while grapes from late harvests will be good but nothing special."
"This will certainly not be the year of the century, but there will be some excellent wines. This will be a year when how a vine was worked will count more than where it is," he concluded. The Zonin family has vineyards in all of Italy's most important wine producing regions, from north to south, and according to its chief expert and production director, Franco Giacosa, the quality of this year's wine will be mixed.
"This year went very well in Sicily and this may well be our best year there. Puglia and the south in general also went well, although our Primitivo grapes were below average for sugar content. Most of the north looks good but we had some problems in Tuscany because of rain and hail, although the coastal Maremma area was spared," he said.
The problems in Tuscany were confirmed by Ezio Rivella, the man responsible for the success of Castello Banfi wines, who observed that "2005 saw production fall and grapes which with their low sugar content will produce wine with a nice color and a fruity aroma."
"The Maremma grapes are definitely better than those in the Chianti Classico zone, which had more serious problems. In Montalcino there will be some fine wines but they could have been much better. Unfortunately, it just rained too much
there. All in all, 2005 quality-wise will be just below 2004," Rivella said.
In terms of quantity, the consensus was that production this year will be about 10% below last year. Before the harvest began in August producers were confident this year would be an exceptional one because of its climatic similarities with 1997, the greatest year in decades.
