Harvest 2026 is over, at least in the vineyards. In the winery, however, things are still moving and, while we are writing these lines, the last few grams per litre of sugar in our Cabernet still have to finish fermenting. So yes, this year the fermentations have been loooooong.
It was a very early harvest, after one of the hottest summers we can remember. Luckily, the heat was accompanied by the right amount of rain at the right moments, and that made a huge difference. The vines never really stopped, the grapes stayed healthy and, when harvest arrived, their sanitary condition was honestly excellent. This was probably the first thing we noticed while picking: beautiful bunches, clean grapes, very good skins and, above all, a lot of sugar.
A very rich Sangiovese
This was especially true for the Sangiovese. In some vineyards we measured potential alcohol levels well above 15%, which gives a pretty clear idea of the level of ripeness we reached this year.
Of course, this does not mean that all the wines will end up at 15% alcohol. Potential alcohol is just one piece of information and, as always, the interesting part comes afterwards. Our job now is to take all that richness and concentration and turn it into wines that still have balance, freshness and drinkability.
At this stage we prefer not to make big statements about the vintage. Every year, just after harvest, there is a temptation to immediately define an vintage as great, difficult, powerful, elegant or whatever else. We prefer to wait. September and October are not always the best months to understand what the wines will really become.
Very, very long fermentations
With so much sugar in the grapes, we knew from the beginning that fermentation could take a little longer than usual, and that is exactly what happened.
Most of the wines have now finished, but not all of them. As we write this article, the Cabernet is still slowly working through the very last grams per litre of sugar. Nothing dramatic, just a matter of patience.
It is always strange how clearly harvest seems to end in the vineyard. There is a last bunch, a last crate, a last tractor coming back. In the winery, however, there is no real finish line. The grapes may have been picked weeks ago, but the 2026 vintage is still very much alive inside the tanks.
The people behind the harvest
Then, of course, there are the people.
Harvest is one of the busiest moments of the year, but it is also one of the moments we enjoy the most. There is our family, the people who work with us throughout the year, and then the guys and girls who come to help us during harvest.
Some of them joined us for the first time this year, while others have now been coming back for more than ten years. At that point, calling them simply “people who come to help” is probably no longer very accurate. By now, they are part of the family too.
There are long days, tired backs, dirty shoes, plenty of food, plenty of jokes and somehow, at the end of it all, everything gets done. So before talking too much about the quality of the grapes or what we expect from the wines, the first real thank you has to go to all of them.
The first grapes from the new Guerrino
There was also one very small harvest this year that meant quite a lot to us: the first grapes from the replanted Guerrino vineyard.
The vines are only three years old, so we are talking about very few bunches. Nothing important in terms of quantity, and those grapes will simply become part of our Chianti Classico. Still, after the replanting, it was very nice to see grapes hanging from those rows again.
The last harvest from the old Guerrino vineyard was in 2022. That year, before the historic vines were removed, we decided to keep those grapes separate and vinify them on their own. That small production became Il Guerrino 2022, our tiny single-vineyard wine from the last vintage of the old vineyard.
Now everything starts again from zero: young vines, very few grapes and a lot of years ahead of them. Maybe one day Guerrino will once again have enough personality to become a single-vineyard wine. Maybe not. For now, we are simply happy to see it growing again and to have picked those first few bunches.
So, how is 2026?
The simple answer is: it is still too early to say.
What we do know is that the grapes were in excellent condition, the Sangiovese was very ripe and concentrated, and the fermentations have asked us for a lot of patience. Over the next few months the wines will start showing us much more clearly what kind of vintage 2026 really is.
For now, we taste, we wait and we let the wines do their work.
