Barrique – Troncais – temperature – malolactic fermentation

The aging room is our own taste and aroma little safe where our young wines rest facing a journey through time that, upon awaking, will see them evolved, mature and complete; capable of being an expression of the terroir and the vines that have created them, at the same time, to return all the sensorial features that have always characterized the Terre del Marchesato style.

Adjoining the cellar, our aging room is equipped with modern systems that maintain constant the temperature and the humidity rate. It contains only French oak barrels coming from Tronçais woods in the Allier area, a region that has a reputation of being the most beautiful oak forest of Europe as well as the production area of one of the best oak woods for aging in the world, ideal to ensure the best maturation of our wines before aging in bottle.

 

The barrels are renewed cyclically every three years and are subjected to daily bâtonnage. It’s a technique which consists in stirring the barrel and mixing the fine or noble lees to the mass of wine in aging. The purpose of this operation, carried out every day during the first two months of the malolactic fermentation, is to give our wine more body, softer tannins and a mix of intense and involving aromatic notes.

Traditionally bâtonnage is achieved with a special steel rod at the end of which is attached a chain or an appendix that facilitates mixing. We apply instead a more evolved and less invasive technique, practiced only a little in Italy, each of our barrels are inserted inside a stackable support that, thanks to simple wheels, allows to rotate the barrel and mix the content without opening it.

This means preventing the contact of air and bacteria with the wine in a so delicate phase such as malolactic fermentation… another small dowel aimed at achieving total quality.