The sun has just begun to shine on the rows and the harvest teams are already at work, picking the first bunches destined for the estate’s prized red wines. Each bunch, carefully selected, is placed in 15 kg crates. In less than an hour, the bunches will be transported to the cellar, where they will undergo further selection on the sorting table. They will then pass through the optical sorter, thus on their way to their place in the prestigious Ornellaia range. “The harvest is always a crucial moment,” says Marco Balsimelli, Production Director of Ornellaia, “but in the vineyard every moment of the year is important. This 2024 has been positive and at the same time challenging: from March to June the frequent rains replenished the water reserves in the soil and at the same time required assiduous and constant care of each parcel, which obviously was not lacking.”
Summer arrived in full force only at the end of June and gave Bolgheri two months of sun and dry weather, creating the ideal conditions for the vines.
“The arrival of good weather allowed us to overturn a delicate situation, creating the ideal conditions for a beautiful vintage. In particular, between mid-July and early August we recorded 20 days of very intense heat” continues Balsimelli: “this context of slight water stress allowed the arrest of vegetative growth and the beginning of the actual ripening process with the concentration of sugars, aromas and polyphenols.”
To complete the picture of a perfect summer, Ornellaia’s microclimate did not fail to provide the plants with cool and breezy nights with temperatures between 19 and 22 degrees C and, finally, on mid-August, there was also very beneficial rain that saw between 10 and 20 mm of water fall, depending on the plots. “It was providential because it relaunched the ripening of the grapes, giving them the right impetus,” he concludes.
2024 Ornellaia Harvest
Lamberto Frescobaldi, President of Frescobaldi, of which Ornellaia is a part, is very satisfied:
“The grapes arrived at the harvest healthy, ripe and vigorous. The Sauvignon Blanc grapes – harvested in several passes between 12 and 30 August – are already fermenting in the cellar and now we continue with the other white varieties of the estate and with the red ones. The attention to the smallest details and the commitment we dedicate to the vineyards with over 700 hours of manual work per hectare per year, repays us with a wonderful balance of the plants which, in harmony with the vintage, always and consistently express the deep and unique stamp of the Ornellaia terroir”.
And if the harvest of the first parcels of Merlot has begun in recent days, the harvest is expected to continue until the beginning of October, concluding with the last bunches of Cabernet Sauvignon.
