You can feel something special in the air during the grape harvest season. Maybe it’s the smell of freshly picked bunches, or maybe the bustle of the laborers in the vineyards, or the humming of tractors, rushing the Brachetto grapes to the winery. Still, every year in Piedmont, from late August on, the people of Brachetto, from growers to winery workers, from tractor drivers to oenologists and agronomists, are busy harvesting and pressing the grapes which, right then, reach ideal maturity and are ready to become the wine-to-be, the future, best-ever Brachetto vintage. Then, you detect the flavors, the soft, penetrating sweet-sour smells in the vineyards, and even more so in the cellars. It’s the essence of fermenting Brachetto grapes that spreads into the air and that, as locals say, is like no other odor in the whole world.
It’s the unmistakable scent of the Brachetto grapes which are harvested in the first ten days in September on the hills of Southern Monferrato, in the provinces of Asti and Alessandria.