Wine Diary
“Grooner”* Week!
We have to mobilize all our strength once again for the last days of the harvest. Throughout the week, we patiently brought carefully selected Grüner Veltliner* grapes from the best vineyards around Langenlois to the press house. The weather has been consistently ‘moody’, dictating the rhythm and sometimes even the soundtrack to the ‘harvest showdown’. It's an exciting finale with plenty of suspense, as conditions change from day to day, sometimes even from hour to hour. But the patience and perseverance are indeed rewarded: the remaining fruits have gained a lot of character at this relatively late stage of the harvest. Yesterday, for example, in bright sunshine and very cool temperatures, we received truly precious grapes from ‘Spiegel’vineyard, previously from ‘Käferberg’ and also from the ‘Berg-Vogelsang’. The night remained dry, and one of our tractors is just arriving at the press house with a load of harvest crates from the famous ‘Lamm’ vineyard.
Some specialties are still hanging outside: with Grüner Veltliner from ‘Loiserberg’, Muskateller from ‘Rosenhügel’ and Cabernet Franc, the harvest finale will go into ‘extra time’ again next week!
* US -nick name for the Austrian varietal – the warm tones of later harvested Grüner grapes add to the otherwise fresh, crisp and spicey character – like the voice of a ‘mature’ Jazz-singer, a ‘Crooner’…
