SAN POLO HARVEST DIARY | DIARIO DELLA VENDEMMIA 17 What does it mean, now, for San Polo to be ORGANIC? Safeguarding the landscape and biodiversity, taking care of every single vine and enhancing the land’s historical and cultural heritage. These are the key factors that underpin the organic management of San Polo’s vineyards, the principles that inspire the estate’s philosophy. What are the first practices conducted in the vineyard at the beginning of each new vintage? All the activities that aim to maintain the intrinsic prolife of the soil, one of the primary objectives of the initial phases: after the harvest, in fact, we prepare the soil to face a new vintage, via deep digging over with a de-compacting action and fertilization based on organic substance to restore its fertility. We create the seedbed for generally leguminous green manure plants – with nitrogen-fixing action – and Brassicaceae, which defend against nematodes and fungi and improve the structure of the soil. Winter pruning and digging over the sub-row allow us to control weeds, thereby avoiding the use of chemical weedkillers that are harmful to the ecosystem. When the vegetative cycle resumes, what activities do you consider essential to best set up the vineyard system? First of all, we carry out all interventions on the leaf apparatus aimed at regulating the development of the upper leaf canopy. The removal of premature buds, suckers and the removal of infertile buds frees the vine of the redundant and unproductive shoots so as to achieve good vegetative-productive balance and a vineyard in the best phytosanitary condition. We prefer to carry out bundling rather than topping, a technique of binding the canes that, however laborious, allows a more natural development of the foliage, as well as greater accumulation of sugars and anthocyanins in the berries and better defence against damage caused by atmospheric agents. At the end of the fruit set, the thinning of the basal foliage on the side of the leaf wall that faces north allows us to create the best possible microclimate around the bunch in active development. Before veraison, we arrange the bunches so as to be prepared for bunch thinning and complete leaf removal, which takes place just before the harvest. This operation fosters the berries’ ripening process, good health and limits the onset of sunburn. How do you decide the exact time to start the harvest operations? The evaluation of the technological and phenolic maturity of the grapes takes place through targeted sampling in the vineyard. Although there are tools capable of providing us with precise indications on the sugar content, such as the refractometer, in San Polo the final decision is based on the tasting the berries: only the competence and experience of man, assisted by technology, can decide on the perfect time to start harvesting!
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