Cuculaia Syrah Cortona DOC 2018 - Fabrizio Dionisio

The rest of the grapes from the Cuculaia vineyard flows together, together with the wine obtained from the separate vinification of the other parcels considered, each year, to be the most qualitative of our vineyards, in the mass that will form the assembly of Il Castagno, the Syrah symbol of our company , of which, therefore, the Cuculaia is a rib, a close relative. The harvest is carried out strictly by hand (usually not before the end of September) and the grapes are collected in small 15 kg perforated boxes; after an extremely soft crushing and destemming (to leave the berries intact) the alcoholic fermentation takes place spontaneously in steel tanks at a controlled temperature (only if necessary). The subsequent maceration on the skins lasts at least four weeks. Malolactic fermentation involves only the flower must (the wine obtained from pressing the pomace is never used for the production of our wines) and it also occurs spontaneously, without inoculation of bacteria; follows a long period (at least 24 months) of aging on the noble lees in the best French oak barrels of Allier, Nevers and Troncais (barriques and 15 hl barrels made for us by friendly master coopers) and a small part, if deemed appropriate according to the characteristics of the vintage, in our old, beloved cement barrels, finely restored by skilled craftsmen. The selection continues in the cellar, on the basis of periodic tastings from each single barrel; at the end of this long and laborious process, only a few hundred bottles (at most 3,000) of Cuculaia are produced.