Harvest 2021: the year of Sciacchetrà

Also this year during the month of September that just ended, the harvest filled with joy and frenzy all the streets and alleys of our beautiful area and especially those of Volastra, the agricultural capital of the Cinque Terre National Park.

Summer 2021 turned out to be sunny and dry, guaranteeing an excellent quality harvest on our terraces, where the Bosco, Vermentino and Arbarola vines were kissed by a fantastic Mediterranean sun associated with cool nocturnal sea breezes that contributed to the perfect ripening of the grapes.

Once again, for the grape harvest and the vinification in our historic family cellar, the contribution of our friends from Bergamo was decisive, who in this season came even more numerous given the considerable amount of bunches to be harvested.

The use of rack monorails, installed by Swiss technicians in the ‘80s, was essential for transporting the precious cargo from the terraced strips with dry stone walls to the carriage road. Given the extremely positive season we have selected a good quantity of Sciacchetrà grapes, which we left to dry out in the sun for about a week and which will be pressed with our feet around the end of October, as did our ancestors, to obtain the precious must which, when left to ferment in a chestnut barrel, will produce the legendary Sciacchetrà, a sweet dessert/meditation wine which, since the dawn of time, has always set the tables of kings and high prelates.

Agriculture in the Cinque Terre must always be put in the foreground by the institutions, considering that in addition to the fact of producing excellent DOC wine, it is the only human activity that can counteract the hydro-geological instability of our fragile territory, guaranteeing at the same time a future to the new generations, who intend to live in this little corner of Paradise.