Tastings in the cellar of the new Agapanto 2018

Tasting , a fundamental step in creating a blend.

A little science, a little art.

January 2020. The producer Silvia Cirri, the oenologist Laura Zuddas, the agronomist Linda Franceschi and the entire team are present in the cellar for the tastings. taste the new Agapanthus 2018.

On the wooden table in the cellar, in front of the vats, there is a long row of glasses. Behind each one there is a glass bottle with a label that bears apparently arcane acronyms, but which in reality indicate the variety, quantity and vat of origin of the wine they contain.

This is a day of tastings .

Every month, sometimes even more often, this operation is repeated: from each individual vat, tonneau or barrique, some wine is taken, bottled, labelled and placed on the table.

When the grapes enter the cellar and are vinified, they produce a wine that can become something significantly different from that produced by the grapes harvested the next day, in the same vineyard and put in the vat next door. Therefore, it is important to taste all the individual parcels. Furthermore, at Podere Conca, already at the time of the harvest, the grapes are divided by variety and area and therefore, despite the company being small, the wines in taste there are really so many!

Poured into glasses, the wines are studied and analyzed to understand whether the winemaking choices made to date are the right ones or whether something needs to be changed.

Sometimes this simply means racking the wine and putting it into barriques, or vice versa removing it from the barrique and putting it back into a larger vat together with other wines from other barriques.

Generally this happens when the blend is decided: we taste the Ciliegiolo, the Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon, we decide the percentages of each and the other and we try in small what will be the future Agapanthus. To be precise we use a graduated cylinder, to have the desired proportion of the wines.

If that's what you taste it pleases but it doesn't convince one hundred percent, it is composed of a blend slightly different, for example with 5% more Cabernet Sauvignon and taste again.

It seems impossible, but the new blend poured into the glasses is completely different. There are those who prefer it, and those who opt for the previous test.

At this point, another change: this time a pinch more Franc. One more taste . Here is the new Agapanto, voted unanimously.

In the following days, the decanting and moving of the wine begins to recreate on a grand scale that little magic created in the glass.

It looks like a game of red tubes that cross the cellar, intertwine and start again. In reality, each one contains within it a part of Agapanthus that is forming.

by Silvia Cirri, Linda Franceschi and Laura Zuddas