The 2022 harvest at Torelló Winegrowers. Drought and night harvesting.

For another year, after their evaluation process, the Bureau Veritas auditors have given Torello the certificate of conformity to the Corpinnat Collective Brand regulations. In this way they declare and certify that:

Our vineyards are ecological and are within Corpinnat territory, in our case Gelida (Alt Penedes).
The harvest is done manually.
At least 90% of the grapes come from the historical varieties.
The totality of the Corpinnat sparkling wine is made in our cellar and is aged for at least 18 months.

For us, Bureau Veritas is more than a formal reglementary inspection or a certificate of conformity. It is the embodiment of our carrying out practices that pursue excellence in the making of quality sparkling wine using the traditional method of second fermentation in the bottle.

What is more, the majority of Corpinnat rules are also of obligatory fulfilment for the making of still wines that we also produce in the cellars under other DOs such as, in our case, Penedes.

The 2022 harvest on our Can Martí Estate started on 4th August, 5 days earlier than usual because of the drought and the rapid maturing of the earlier varieties, and ended on the 14^th of September. The litres of rain per square metre collected between the 1^st of January 2022 and the start of the harvest were just 179. On the other hand, in August and the first fortnight of September we received 75 litres of rain, of which our centenary olive trees will make the most. Since the end of the spring and throughout the summer we have had 4 severe heatwaves.

In Torelló, the nearly 80 hectares of ecological vines on the Can Martí Estate are harvested, in part, when it is still night. A harvesting day starts at 04:30 in the morning and finishes at 13:00. We look for the lowest night temperatures (depending on the day, between 16ºC and 19ºC) to protect the health of the harvesters and avoid heatstroke. In the words of Paco de la Rosa Torelló ‘It is important to respect their rest and improve their working conditions in a job as hard as that of the harvesters’. On the other hand, it also avoids a certain loss of aroma and colour of the grape juice due to the high daytime temperatures of the grapes. Finally, it also supposes the saving of energy as we do not need to cool the grapes before pressing.

In 2022 we have had between 20% and 30% less production of grapes – depending on the variety – compared to the previous year due to the intense drought, but that said, the health of the grapes has been impeccable. According to J.A.Montilla, Torelló’s enologist, ‘the perfect health of the grapes, together with a balanced acidity, will let us make great quality still and sparkling wines.’

In Torelló, the harvest of the 11 grape varieties is done manually, in boxes of 25kgs, pallets of 250 kgs or small trailers of 2,500 kgs and the transport of the grapes from the vines to the presses is very fast, taking just 10 minutes. In this way, the bunches arrive whole.

Can Martí Estate, Gelida (Alt Penedès), September 2022