San Gimignano vintages

1990: Around 400 hectares (988 acres) produced around 40,000hl of Vernaccia in 1990.

2002: Very wet. Hard to find grapes unaffected by rot.

2003: Very hot. Thick-skinned grapes with high sugars. Fat-tasting wines with high levels of alcohol.

2009: 768 hectares (1,900 acres) in production.

2011: The first half of the growing season, until mid-summer, was cool, rainy. From mid-August the weather turned very hot. Wines made using skin contact tend to show marmalade-like flavours.

2012: Very dry growing season.

San Gimignano: 2014 Vintage

2015: 730 hectares (1,800 acres) produced 41,000hl of wine, 9% lower compared to 2014. Very hot in June and the beginning of August. Then alternate periods of rain and sun, with cool nights. Harvest began in the third week of September. Potentially promising.

2016: 2016 Avery good year with a regular growing season. The wines have balanced acidity.

2017: 2017 produced 31,651 hl of Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOC from 720 hectares (1,778 acres). The 2017 growing season was defined by two climatic events. Winter was cold, especially so in January when average temperatures were half those of the previous two years. However, winter was also dry, and this, coupled with hot, dry, sunny weather in March brought budburst forward. Shoot growth began in the last ten days of March, 15 days ahead of the norm. On 19th-20 April 2017 a sharp drop in temperature caused crop losses of up to 30-40% in the worst cases, particularly in vineyards on lower-lying sites. Dry weather in May allowed affected vineyards a second chance to produce vegetative growth, although with fewer flowers and thus potential grapes. Sunny and very dry weather followed, with only one rain storm of note on 8th August. Vine stress was a potential issue leading to ripe and unripe berries on the same bunch. The result was yields were down 26% compared to 2016. 

Vernaccia di San Gimignano Riserva 2017 wines are generally very powerful, with higher than usual alcohol levels, and bigger than normal structure.

In my report for the 2018 Decanter World Wine Awards blind tasting competition (for which I was Tuscany Chair) I wrote ‘Vernaccia di San Gimignano is often labelled as nothing more than a refreshing dry white to be quaffed by tourists ogling the town’s looming towers. But San Gimignano was one of the few smaller Tuscan regions to pick up medals in nearly all price categories, from every day wines to super-premium.’

20182018 was a good to very good quality vintage, a return to normal, after the climatic oddities of recent years: it was cold at the right time, it rained enough to restore water reserves (abundantly in the first seven months of 2018, when 586.5 mm of rain fell compared to 532.42mm in the whole of 2017). For the producers this was a challenge, eg. from downy mildew (peronospora). Spring and summer recorded average temperatures with dry heat and refreshing rains.

2018 Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG wines have a lower alcohol content than in recent years, while acidity and structure depend on the harvest date. Those that come from grapes harvested in the first half of September are lighter, fresher and more acidic, those of the second half of the month have more structure

The main vegetative phases of the vines were also normal in 2018 thanks to a slightly capricious seasonal trend: the region had a real winter, which started early with the months of November (2017) and December (2017), cold and rainy more than average, a fairly mild and always rainy January. There followed a very cold February, with two snowfalls in the last 10 days, and a month of March that was initially very rainy and then again very cold.

Spring arrived in mid-April with a marked increase in temperatures and stable weather: in the vineyard a good and regular expulsion of the ributti begins. May was variable and rather rainy, with temperatures often lower than normal; only in the third decade there is stable weather and the rise in temperatures, which trigger an excellent flowering of the Vernaccia di San Gimignano vines, followed by an equally excellent fruit set in the first ten days of June, despite the weather having changed again.

The alternation of sunny and rainy days provided favorable conditions for the development of peronospera outbreaks, which at the beginning of the summer forced producers to carry out above-average interventions, especially in the Sangiovese vineyards.

From July the weather became stable and sunny, there was only a thunderstorm in the middle of the month and then the temperatures rose above average. August continued with high temperatures and some thunderstorms which, especially in the third decade, became intense and frequent. Harvest began around 20th September (a normal time).

The high potential yields of 2018 Vernaccia allowed producers the economic room to discard sub-standard fruit.

San Gimignano produced 39,600hl in 2018 which is average in volume but up 25% on the drought 2017 vintage (which was down 26.8% on Vernaccia production). The 2018 harvest came from 720 hectares of vineyards for Vernaccia di San Gimignano. 

Of 1,900 ha of vines in total in San Gimignano, 720ha were destined for Vernaccia di San Gimignano (as mentioned above), 450 destined for San Gimignano DOC, and 730 destined for IGT,Chianti DOCGandChianti Colli Senesi DOCG.

There were around 170 producers in the San Gimignano area, 70 of whom bottle and sell their wine under their own brand. 

2019: Giuseppe Passoni of the Mormoraiaestate told me 2019 saw a frost post-bud-burst, a wet May, and OK summer and a nail-biting autumn harvest (Anteprima 2019). ‘A tough cool season albeit with a nice autumn,’ one grower told me (Anteprima 2020). Marco Giusti of the Fornacelle estate told me ‘you had to wait and be patient to pick well in 2019’. Those who had clean fruit and waited made really super wines.