Brunello di Montalcino

In a separate small tank we prepare the “pied de cuve”: a small quantity of grapes are brought to fermentation in order to use them later to inoculate the first mass of the vintage. Later, inoculation will be done by adding some wine from already fermenting vats to the wines that have to start fermentation.

This system allows us to use our original yeasts without letting the “apiculate” yeasts to ferment the mass: they usually produce some smells that we do not like at all, but they die if some other yeasts are able to start in bigger quantity before them.

Now fermentation can begin: the inoculated mass will start slowly to show the work of the yeasts that transform the sugar of the grapes in alcohol and carbon dioxide. This produces also heat and it depends on the activity of the yeast how fast the fermenting goes and how much heat is produced.

We ferment almost all wines in wooden vats of Vosges Oak. This absorbs and dissipates a great quantity of the heat produced by fermentation, but sometimes heat can go to high and we have to cool the vat using cooling plates that are connected to the air conditioning system.

Formation of the Hat

The hat, that we call “il cappello”, is a bunch of grape skins that comes to surface during fermentation because the most activity of the yeast, as one can see in the video “Glass Fermentation Vat” happens in this layer of skins.

Wine fermenting in a transparent fermentation vat at Podere Le Ripi. How wine "happens".

The hat forms in a few hours after fermentation begun and must be kept as wet as possible because some clusters of this mass can reach very very high temperatures, as I discovered measuring different spots in the glass vat. I think these clusters are due to different concentrations of sugar and/or yeast and must be broken: that’s why I decided to use the “follatura” system – which consists in punching the skins to the bottom of the tank with a baton in order to wet them completely and to disaggregate the clusters.

The old system of “rimontaggio” – which consists in pumping wine from the bottom over the hat – is not able to loosen those clusters and the risk to have them mounting their temperature too high remains.

Fermentation goes to End

We know that fermenting should not exceed 30°C (86°F) and if a cluster goes far above this values we are certain that this will produce some unpleasant smells. In the mass they could have little impact… but I prefer to keep control on them.

Toward the end of fermentation the skins produce less CO₂ and they begin to float in the liquid mass: this is a delicate moment because the risk of fermentation stop becomes high and if it happens, some residual sugar will remain in the wine and make it dangerously unstable. Some heat or other triggers and a new yeast can start to ferment the residual sugar: the “brettanomiches”. If this happens your wine, as it happened once to me, will stink from horse sweat to manure to what the French once called “merde de poule”: very unpleasant!

The clean Wine

Now that the sugar presence is down to zero we can raise the clean wine from the vat.
First we let the liquid out and separate the floating skins with a simple sieve. This wine will go directly in the refinement barrel to stay there for up to 34 months. Usually I prefer big oval barrels of 16 to 32 hectoliters, but I also use the fermentation vats of 35 to 40 hectoliters to refine my wines.

Some smaller cuts will be refined in tonneaux (500 liters) or in barriques (225 liters)

After leaving the liquid drain through the skin mass for an hour or so we take the skins off and pass them in the press. This is very well shown in our video “My Bonsai”.

We use a hydraulic press with a stainless steel frail: pressing very gently permits to collect a much more concentrated wine called “torchiato” that will be eventually added to the rest of the mass. It is richer and more structured, but alone it is almost too strong. It is good to enrich the mass.

I am very contrary to press the skins to squeeze: in my opinion the best comes out with a small and slow pressure buildup. If one stands near the press it is very easy to taste the differences in the meanwhile that the pressure goes up.

The Malolactic Fermentation

Later on, between November and Febraury, the wine will make spontaneously the malolactic fermentation. The still present yeasts start this process that transforms the malic acid in lactic acid.

This happens spontaneously if the lees are still in the tank. This is the reason why we remove the lees only after the malolactic has come to end, around springtime.