News from San Michele all’Adige - The weather in Trentino (Part 2) – From March to November 2012

MARCH 2012

The weather was good for the season. In the second part of the month it started to rain.

We tied up vines. We had a school trip in Alba and Barolo (Picture 1), near Turin. We bottled Moscato rosa.

  

APRIL 2012

Temperatures were too low, so orchards and vines shoots were damaged (Picture 2 - Damaged shoot of Chardonnay 25/04/2012).

We studied some machines used for weed removal. (Picture 3)

  

MAY 2012

Temperature were within the average. We carried out some pruning on Guyot. We tried to graft vines. We grafted two varieties: Moscato rosa and Turca (Picture 4)

 JUNE 2012
Temperatures were perfect for vines and for orchards to ripen properly, but it rained a lot and this fact caused a disease called downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola – Picture 5) for vines and scab for apples  (Venturia inaequalis - Picture 6). We put our little vines, which we grafted in may, into small pots; moreover we bottled sparkling wine. The best thing for us is that school finished.

 

 

JULY 2012

High temperatures and a lot of rainfall. In our own vineyards, some of us carried out green pruning. We removed  some bunches to improve quality then we thinned out also apples.

AUGUST 2012 

It didn’t rain a lot. Grapes started to ripen. Some farmers began to harvest some white vine varieties: mainly Chardonnay, Pinot blanc and Pinot noir (in order in Pictures 7-8-9 below).

SEPTEMBER 2012

School started on the 12^th of September. Grape harvest kept on. This year the yield was not so high as 2011. After the 15^th  there were a lot of rainfall.

OCTOBER 2012

Temperatures decreased. We harvested Moscato rosa and pressed it. We stored grapes in boxes to produce a sweet wine called passito. We produced some different wines: Pinot gris, Moscato giallo, Pinot noir. We produced also a wine that will be used to make sparkling wine.

NOVEMBER 2012

Temperatures were within the average. We visited a machinery exhibition in Bologna that is called EIMA (Picture 10 below), there we saw a lot of innovative machines. Once back in San Michele we filtered Moscato rosa, our special sweet wine and a type of rosè wine.