Cantina Rauscedo starts its 2026 grape harvest two weeks early

Cantina Rauscedo, a cooperative winery in Friuli Venezia Giulia, said Thursday that its 2026 grape harvest began about two weeks ago, earlier than usual, after a growing season that pushed ripening forward across parts of its vineyard area.

The winery, based in Rauscedo in the province of Pordenone in northeastern Italy, said the first picking operations have supported an encouraging early outlook for the vintage. According to the company, the grapes harvested so far show good health and favorable quality indicators, while vineyard conditions remain sound as work continues parcel by parcel.

The harvest is being managed with staggered timing across different vineyards so growers can pick each block at what the winery considers the best balance between ripeness, aroma development and acidity. That approach, the cooperative said, reflects a broader effort to tailor decisions more closely to the specific conditions of each site rather than relying on a single harvest window.

“We have reached harvest with grapes that are overall healthy, and the quality indicators at this stage look very encouraging,” general manager Flavio Geretto said in a statement released by the winery. He added that a final assessment will depend on the rest of the harvest, which is still under way, and said the timing of picking each parcel has become one of the most important factors in expressing the potential of the area and its grape varieties.

Cantina Rauscedo said the quantitative picture also appears balanced so far, although it expects differences from one variety and vineyard to another because of seasonal temperature patterns and varying water availability. The winery said it has been tracking those conditions throughout the season through a network of weather stations and other agronomic monitoring tools used to guide technical decisions and set harvest dates.

This year’s harvest has added importance for the cooperative because it coincides with its 75th anniversary and with the launch of new vineyard selection programs tied to higher-end production. The winery said it has started quality-selection projects for several of its main grape varieties, including Sauvignon, Ribolla Gialla, Refosco dal peduncolo rosso, Friulano, Traminer Aromatico and Chardonnay.

Under those projects, grapes are being identified in the vineyard using defined selection criteria before they reach the winery. Cantina Rauscedo said the goal is to obtain fruit with more precise quality and style profiles and to use that work to support wines with clearer enological and commercial positioning. The cooperative also said the same approach can be used to develop customized projects with clients, beginning with vineyard selection rather than only cellar work.

The strategy marks a step beyond simple production scale for a winery that already manages a large grape supply base. Founded in 1951, Cantina Rauscedo brings together more than 300 wine-growing families and cultivates about 2,000 hectares across the alluvial plain of the Friulian Grave, between the Tagliamento, Meduna and Cellina rivers. The cooperative says that direct control of the supply chain, together with agronomic research and vineyard mapping, is central to its production model.

The winery also said it has carried out zoning work that identified eight subzones within its territory, each with distinct soil and climate characteristics. That mapping, according to the company, is intended to help direct grapes toward different quality targets and give the cooperative more precise information about where specific varieties perform best.

Friuli Venezia Giulia is one of Italy’s best-known white wine regions, and Cantina Rauscedo has built much of its business around Friulian white wines as well as Prosecco. The company operates in both domestic and export markets and says it is trying to combine the scale typical of a large cooperative with more differentiated production based on site selection, variety and vineyard management.

The 2026 harvest is still in progress, and the final shape of the vintage will depend on the remainder of the picking season and on how later-ripening varieties perform in the coming weeks. For now, the early message from one of Friuli’s larger cooperative wineries is that the season has started ahead of schedule and that the first fruit coming into the cellar is broadly in line with the company’s expectations.