In 2023, harvesting in Friuli DOC area started later than usual, at the beginning of September, due to the bad weather with strong winds and large hailstorm that happened end of July over much of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The situation until then had been optimal: the abundant rains alternate to hot sunny days let the grapes correctly ripe.
Lea Winery’s vineyards were fortunately only partially affected by the bad weather and the great heat of the second half of August provided a restorative action. Anyway, it can face the challenges of extreme weather conditions thanks to its drip irrigation system, which makes the best use of water without waste, organic farming, and an overall sustainable production concept in environmental-social-economic terms.
Lea’s experienced team started harvesting Pinot Grigio at the beginning of September and continued in the following weeks with the other white grape varieties (Ribolla Gialla, Glera, Traminer, Chardonnay…).
Immediately after collection, the grapes were processed on three separate production lines, using one crusher-destemmer and two different horizontal pneumatic wine presses, in order to avoid oxidative phenomena, early and unwanted fermentation, volatilization of aromas that would otherwise compromise the quality of the wine.
Moreover, this year Lea Winery has used a new WILLMES high quality pneumatic press to process the grapes of Ribolla Gialla and Pinot Grigio hand-harvested from specific parts of the vineyards. Those grapes are carefully selected in the vineyards where the soil, position and exposition to sun are ideal to let them overripe and produce its orange wines.
Despite the weather conditions of this summer, the winery has great expectations for this vintage’s orange wines: although the production yield has been lower, the quality is always excellent.