Castelli di Jesi DOCG

Vintage 2023 started out with great promise. We saw perfect late winter and early spring conditions, and bud break was right on time in early April. Then around came late May and early June and the rain never stopped, leading to very high levels of humidity and an explosion of downy mildew which attacked the delicate Verdicchio plants particularly hard. We lost 25% of the Verdicchio to downy mildew, but the remaining 75% made it to harvest in great shape. The early rain postponed maturation and the early harvest took place on September 5th and late harvest on September 25th.

Vintage 2022 was characterized by extreme heat and extreme draught. From May 1st to September 1st there wasn’t a drop of rain. Nevertheless, our vigorous old vines performed great thanks to their deep and well-established root system and we continued with our dry farming. To protect the fruit from potential heat burn we left a bit extra leaf cover on the vines through the summer, only to uncover the clusters just before harvest which came very early as maturation was well ahead of schedule. The Verdicchio first pass was on August 20th, and the second pass was on September 10th. Despite the early harvest, sugar levels exceeded those of 2021.

Vintage 2021 was our first vintage, so by all measures a memorable year. We set foot in the vineyard for winter pruning on January 1st, and our lives changed forever. A relatively dry winter was followed by an early spring bud break as temperatures increased quite quickly. Despite the threat of an extremely hot summer, temperatures were warm but not exceedingly, with an average amount of rainfall. Maturity was in line with our initial expectations The first harvest pass for the Verdicchio was on August 25th and the late Verdicchio pass was on September 20th. The early harvest presented exceptional acidity which persisted to the second harvest, setting the stage for the identity of the Pietro 17 Castelli di Jesi characterized by the calcareous clay soil.