The 2023 harvest

During the harvest, many of you already ask us for details about how the season is going and the expected results, but only at the end of alcoholic fermentations we can be sure about the character and potential of the wines to come. So, here we are to tell you how it went.

Let's start from the end: the results of this harvest have been positive like it hasn not happened in many years. The harvest was very abundant with only two exceptions: the Aganoor Estate, which suffered from the August heat, and the vineyards upstream from the cellar, hit by hail at the end of July.

We have to say that the ample availability of water was the distinctive feature of this 2023 at Ca' Lustra: the "almost cloudburst" rains in May gave a strong vegetative push to both the vines and the grass; the wet spring also complicated the management of treatments, but, remembering the drought of the previous year, we gladly worked hard to deal with the additional workload.

Having reached summer unscathed and not too disheveled, the approximately 90 mm of rain per month that fell in July and August, well-distributed, favoured the ripening and weight gain of the grapes. The red wines, especially Merlot and Cabernet Franc, benefited the most from the characteristics of the vintage and they seem to us to have never been so good. Some late white grapes, among them Tai Bianco and Garganega, have produced exciting wines. However, the early white grapes were a bit penalized, cornered by the hail and harvested, by necessity, in the hottest week of the year. We are encouraged to have finally succeeded in producing a good quantity of Bianco and Rosso Ca’ Lustra, for whose scarcity we have suffered for years.

We are enthusiastic about the results of a vineyard acquired last spring in the Forestana area: a white wine and a red wine that have already convinced us for their body and finesse with this first vinification. Here, old plantings from the '60s dwell on stones and clay, facing northwest at an altitude of 250 meters between Monte Venda and Monte Brecale. This new estate will replace, at least in part, two plots we had rented in the Faedo valley that we were unable to continue managing.