Whenever the harvest ends, there are a few days when I feel a bit strange. You spend weeks thinking about practically nothing else, and suddenly you have time again. You walk into the winery in the morning and there are no longer crates waiting to be unloaded, no people bustling in and out. The wines are still fermenting; some have already finished, others are still going at their own pace, and you can finally start tasting things without the pressure of having to do everything at once. I really love this moment.
This year it has come earlier than ever. It is the first time in our history that we started harvesting on the 12th of August and had finished by early September. But this is what happens when you listen to the vineyard instead of sticking to the calendar. In the mountains, every day counts and waiting can mean arriving too late. We picked earlier to preserve what the heat threatened to carry away.
Personally, and despite the challenges of a summer in which hundreds of hectares of our beloved forest burned, I have a feeling of satisfaction. Not because I think everything went perfectly—it most certainly didn’t—but because I feel that with every step, we understand a little better what we want to do. And I think that is different from knowing how to make better wine. I don’t know if we make better wine. I hope so. But above all, I think we are clearer about what wines we want to make.
Years ago, I looked elsewhere for answers. I travelled, tasted great wines, visited wineries, and came back wanting to apply the things I had learned. And I still do, because I am tremendously curious and probably will never stop being so. But now something different happens to me. The more I travel and the more wines I taste, the more eager I am to return home.
I think I finally understand that our job is not about trying to make the wines that thrill me from other places here in Alpartir. It consists of understanding why they thrill me, and then returning to our vines to try and create our response. I suppose that is what happens when you get to really know a place. Or start to know it, because the longer I am here, the less confidence I have in saying I really know it.
Lately, I also think a lot about what we want Frontonio to be in twenty years. I don’t want it to be bigger. I do want it to be much better. We are incredibly fortunate to work with vines that were here long before us and that, I hope, will remain long after. We are just passing through.
The 2026 wines have now started their journey. Some will need months. Others, years. Some will surprise us, and surely some will bring us disappointment. It is still too early to tell.