“I DIDN’T KNOW DOWNY MILDEW, NOW I KNOW IT WELL”

COMPANY HARVEST NUMBER 59 – MAURO SIRRI’S HARVEST NUMBER 40

Dear Friends,

since early 2020, we have been facing challenging times: the pandemic, wars, price speculation and damages caused by climate change. These factors altogether are endangering our daily work.

In May 2023, we had in Emilia-Romagna heavy hail and, a week later, The Floods: in two days, it rained the same amount of water of 1 year of rainfalls, 350 ml.
The soil was so wet and muddy that we could not enter the fields for working the vineyards. Consequently, that situation gave room to Downy mildew to develop. Up to date, Bertinoro’s winemakes did not know this disease that never before attacked the vineyards of this area.

Downy Mildew is a highly destructive disease that dries the grapes and destroys the crop production: in some vineyards, like the one in Fratta, it ruined 70% of the grapes. Organic estates like us are particularly affected, because no spraying is allowed. This disease tragically affected other Italian regions like Abruzzo and Apulia.

After The Floods, summer was hot and dry as usual. The remaining grapes reached maturation easily and we obtained balanced levels of sugar and acidity.
Grapes were of good quality and we are going to produce fine wines here at CELLI’s.

For 2024, I am forced to increase a little bit wine prices, hoping that the weather situation for this year is balanced.
Vines and men have been companions since ancient times; I trust that our alliance will make us stronger for next vintage.

Mauro Sirri