Wine Diary
Luck of the hardworking
Fine grapes harvested from all first growth vineyards!
This vintage finally does favor the bold! For several weeks we have been getting outstanding grapes from all our best vineyards such as Langenloiser Steinmassel, Zöbinger Heiligenstein, Loiser Berg, Langenloiser Spiegel, Kammerner Lamm and finally Käferberg. This is great news because we are confident that the wines of this promising fruit will meet expectations!
The resulting wines will not have the shapes of weightlifters or bodybuilders. However, I think we did almost everything right this year with the luck of the bold and hardworking. We hope to be blessed with firmly structured wines full of finesse, due in large part to the mostly well-drained primary rock soils.
Some decisions seemed to have been crucial: after all the preparatory vineyard work, we opted for a generous and careful pre-harvest of Chardonnay, Grüner Veltliner, Zweigelt and Pinot Noir– and got great base wines for our sparkling wines, as well as for the classics. This granted us some more time, and we could carefully sort out the red grapes. Temperatures have stayed below 10°C for the last two weeks, so no more Botrytis sneaking in; the remaining grapes stayed clean while more complex aromas developed. Some sunny (more often cloudy) and dry days enabled us to finish this grape “marathon” with the same patience, endurance and care as was practiced in the beginning.
Autumn mood, fog and some sunny bursts and those empty vineyards make us long for calmer days. Though it’s the many busy hands, turning around and cleaning each bunch three times, picking at the sorting belts, handling the presses and cellars, that determine the rhythm. – all of them can be truly proud of the result. That we were out in the vineyards for so long (and still are….one sweet wine should be possible) when most had already long given up – this truly (and literally) has borne fruit!