I love to think about my Vineyard as if it was a natural garden
that grows only thanks to energy from the sun,
nutrition from the soil and care from man.
A garden where we harvest grape berries that we press in order
to produce juice that becomes wine naturally,
just like in ancient times.
NOGHENÈ, in ancient Venetian dialect means “there is not”, it is the name of a wine, which reveals a project:
a small family vineyard of only 2 hectares (5 acres) of surface that can give maximum of six thousand bottles per year of a quality,
intense, particular and innovative red wine produced only from “resistant varieties”.
A vineyard that is naturally organic, cultivated respecting the health of humans and of the environment, a vineyard where there is not
any use of fungicides nor herbicides, there is not any use of fertilizers, there is not any irrigation nor other agronomic crop forcing techniques,
so that Nature is free to concentrate the perfect essence of the territory in the few grape bunches produced, giving only a bottle per plant.
In the winery we do not use additives, but only a small amount of sulphites for wine conservation.
CHOICES THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.
The result is NOGHENÈ, a wine of innovative quality, reflecting the interaction between
climate and territory that reveals the history of the vintage year by year.
THE PROJECT
a red dressed dream
My projects was born in 2013, when a revolution occurred in Italian viticulture as the Department of Agriculture allowed the production of wine from vineyards planted with the NEW RESISTANT GRAPE VARIETIES.
Just like other pioneer Italian vine growers, I saw in this legislative decree the unique opportunity to produce a new wine, respecting human health and environment as never before…a dream that I had been chasing for years, since 30 years ago when I was involved in a scientific study on plant physiology of the resistant grape varieties during my university degree.
At that time these new varieties where not spread in Italian vineyards, and nothing was known about their adaptation to the different soils and climates of Italian wine regions. I had to learn from my own experience. In 2015 I decided to plant a small vineyard with 50 plants of each new resistant variety on different rootstocks, in order to discover if one or more of these varieties would be suited for the soil and climate of my region.
In 2016 I harvested the first few grape bunches and I used them to produce a small quantity of different wines at home, work that I repeated the following years. Based on these experiences of micro-vinification, I selected the varieties that I evaluated to be the best ones in order to produce a top quality red wine and started to plant them in a bigger block.
Finally after few years of work and applied research, in 2022 NOGHENE’ was born, a small and precious production of 2.600 bottles, harmonious blend of five resistant varieties: Cabernet Cortis, Cabernet Eidos, Merlot Khorus, Merlot Kanthus, Prior.
In my Vineyard I chose to dramatically reduce the number of operations: I do not carry out useless operations, in order to reduce as much as possible soil compaction caused by tractor tyres.
Soil and water of my vineyard are not polluted with any kind of chemicals, not even copper nor sulphur often used in organic farming.
These choices allow the grapevines to grow in a soil where the chemical and physical composition is natural, not altered from exogenous substances, thus helping the natural fertility of soil ant the growth of unique natural populations of herbs, animals and microorganisms. This allows them to produce grapes that express the best essence of the territory.
I personally prune and train the plants adopting Guyot and Spur Cordon methods, choosing for every plant only the number of buds that it can feed, helping every plant to develop following its peculiar shape.
These choices lead the plants to produce parsimoniously, giving only one bottle per plant.
In my Vineyard I chose to dramatically reduce the number of operations: I do not carry out useless operations, in order to reduce as much as possible soil compaction caused by tractor tyres.
Soil and water of my vineyard are not polluted with any kind of chemicals, not even copper nor sulphur often used in organic farming.
These choices allow the grapevines to grow in a soil where the chemical and physical composition is natural, not altered from exogenous substances, thus helping the natural fertility of soil ant the growth of unique natural populations of herbs, animals and microorganisms. This allows them to produce grapes that express the best essence of the territory.
I personally prune and train the plants adopting Guyot and Spur Cordon methods, choosing for every plant only the number of buds that it can feed, helping every plant to develop following its peculiar shape.
These choices lead the plants to produce parsimoniously, giving only one bottle per plant.
NOGHENÈ
from the plant to the bottle
The wine production process in the winery, just like in the vineyard, is thought with the aim of eliminating the use of exogenous substances: for this reason the grapes coming from a single vineyard – about 1 kg per plant – are hand harvested at the middle of September, only the perfectly ripen bunches are selected, respecting the berry skin integrity from the plant to the soft destemming and crushing. The maceration lasts at least 18 days in order to extract from the skins all the natural substances that are useful for wine conservation. Punch down of the cup is made manually, in order to preserve integrity of skins and seeds, while reducing the sediments during the following wine ageing.
After soft pressing some of the wine is aged in previously used oak barrels (barriques), the remaining wine rests in stainless steel tanks, a material that makes it easier to preserve the wine allowing use a very low amount of sulphites. No chemical clarification/stabilization is needed nor other physical techniques as the wine settles easily after the cold winter, becoming ready for the bottling that is made in the following year after sterile filtration.
Analytical wine parameters:
NOGHENE’ 2022 aged in stainless steel tank n° 1250 bottles produced: Alcohol 14,3 % vol; Total Acidity 5,5 g/L; pH 3,5; Total Sulphite 30 mg/L
NOGHENE’ 2022 aged in oak barrels n° 1340 bottles produced: Alcohol 14,4 % vol; Total Acidity 6 g/L; pH 3,5; Total Sulphite 52 mg/L
RESISTANT GRAPE VARIETIES
beyond organic farming
«I have always been fascinated by resistant grape varieties,
one must “love” them, beyond having character,
they also know how to defend themselves.…»
Nowadays the grape varieties resistant to fungal diseases (PIWI), if cultivated with knowledge and strict agronomic technique, do represent the only means that we have to pursue the production of grapes that can give wine with zero environmental impact.
“Grape resistant varieties” (in French “cépages résistants”, in German “PilzWiderstandsfähige” or “PIWI“) are described as plants obtained from natural pollination and following selection between different species of the Vitis genus.
We should not think that these species are “new”: they have a long story, as they are the result of international research that started more than 150 years ago. In the middle 1800s unknown and tremendous grape fungal diseases such as downy and powdery mildew and Botrytis cinerea arrived in Europe from North America, causing epidemics that destroyed the vineyards of European Vitis vinifera, dramatically reducing grape production in the whole continent; Catastrophe was avoided by spraying chemicals on the plants every year from May to July: this technique is used even nowadays in all the vineyards around the World with a significant environmental impact and possible presence of residues in the wine.
In parallel with the use of chemicals, an alternative research path started, with the aim of producing grapes and wines from North American Vitis species that had evolved together with the dangerous fungal diseases mentioned above with the result of being naturally resistant to their infections: they can produce grapes without the need of chemical sprays.
Nevertheless these species where “wild” (“foxy”) and they did not produce good quality wines compared with wines obtained from grapes of European Vitis vinifera. Some viticulture scientists started experimenting with natural crossings between European and American Vitis plants in order to combine the quality of the “gentle” European vines together with the resistance to fungal diseases of the “wild” American Vitis species.
Today this research path is finally giving results: grape varieties that allow vine growers to implement truly sustainable projects while producing excellent wines.
IDENTITY AND TERRITORY
an ancient story
«Drinking an excellent glass of wine is a
pleasure which cannot burden future generations»
Eastern Venice is an area in North East Italy where several Italian wine Appelation suc as DOC Prosecco, DOC Venezia, DOC Lison-Pramaggiore and DOCG Lison overlap.
My vineyard is located in Eastern Venice region, in the countryside between the towns of Portogruaro and Concordia Sagittaria, wich was founded by Romans around the year 42 b.C. In these lands intensive cultivation of grapevine started 2000 years ago, when the Romans reclaimed and tilled the soils in order to dedicate them to cultivation of wheat and grapevine, as testified from the archaeological findings of the Museo Nazionale Concordiese in Portogruaro.
In these lands wine production has always continued throughout centuries and is still going on nowadays to testify the natural vocation of soils and climate to viticulture.
The soil is clay loam, alkaline, calcareous, rich of mineral nutrients, with good depth and cultivated following certified organic agriculture methods.
The Adriatic sea is less than 15 miles away, and during summer sea breezes reach my vineyard, mitigate the maximum daily temperatures and maintain dry and healthy grape bunches on the plants.
On the other side, sea proximity causes the dew to wet the plants some nights. This night air humidity excess could damage berries during ripening. This is why the vines are trellised at a good height from the soil and planted at a good distance from each other; this allows good air circulation in the cluster area that induces fast drying of night dew in the morning.
These precautions together with the agronomic choices of avoiding fertilization and irrigation and with precise selection of grape varieties that are better adapted, allow me to obtain healthy and perfectly ripen grapes.
My name is Dionisio,
and i was born on September 29th,
while the grapes from the 1971
harvest where fermenting in wineries.…
After high school I graduated in Viticulture and Enology; I worked for twenty years as consultant and technical manager for grapevine nurseries, travelling in many wine grape regions of the world.
In 2017 I quit my job as an employee to become a full time vine grower. This allowed me to fully dedicate myself to the cultivation of my own vineyard and to transform all experiences gained in the vineyards around the world into the realisation of my dream.
A dream born when I was a kid and grown with me. A dream that started to became true in 2013 when the Italian Government allowed the cultivation of resistant grape varieties. I did not wanted to produce a simple bottle of wine indeed, I wanted to create a special bottle.
