Wine Diary
End of Harvest 2018
Marvellous Muskateller & Sweet Finals
It is finished! - Just in time before our national holiday, we have brought in all of vintage 2018 after a successful but tough “marathon!” It has become indeed a tradition to gather together all available forces at the very end of harvest and, as a fruit of the collective precision work, heave a true grower’s treasure at the Rosenhügel vineyard. Here, even more so than other areas, the vintage character determines the style of resulting wine. For instance, in 2017 we got a healthy, dry, ripe and dense Muskateller with enticing varietal character – 2018 most of the berries had already shriveled to raisins by noble rot, except for some beautiful green and bewitchingly aromatic fruit here and there that will refine the must. All seems to indicate one of those sought after rare TBAs.
“Auslese“ of Old Vines
Shortly before, we brought in the last Grüner Veltliners from old vineyard patches at real peak ripeness – some of those sites had already undergone an earlier selection. We left only grapes that were already slightly afflicted by botrytis for further maturing in the hope of more concentration and density. These expectations have been fully met even without progression of the noble rot! It seems that here we are on track for one of those rare, really fine GV Auslesen, which after some years of cellar maturation will provide full enjoyment even to the most delicate palate!
“Could not have wished for better weather!”
“We could not have wished for a more perfect weather for this short period,“ rejoices young vineyard master Christoph Nastl, “Against all forecasts it stayed dry just until the weekend. This allowed us not only to finish harvest under perfect conditions, by the time it finally started to pour down, we had just brought out organic cow manure and seeds for future green covers in the first round of vineyards, so there the rainfall also happened at just the right time.”