Wine Diary
Vintage 2024 - rough year with gentle wines!
The winter of 2023/24 was mild and relatively wet. Spring lived up to its name at the beginning and favored early budding with regular rainfall which further encouraged vegetation. This was followed by the proverbial, moody April: after a summery first half, the weather turned and a cool northerly current made for almost wintry days and nights. Late frosts in the lowlands were the logical consequence and this time led to some yield losses in the east of Langenlois, e.g. at Kammerner Lamm, while vineyards in the south and west of Langenlois, that we would normally be more concerned about, were largely spared.
The cold shock seemed to have left its mark on the vines, and flowering was moderate and irregular in various sites. Only consistent work on the vines, the foliage and the soil led to a very satisfactory interim result in early summer.
We were still early, the vineyards were well supplied and summer could come. And it came: The second half of July and the first half of August, with plenty of sunshine and heat, brought back memories of 2018. However, there was more brief rainfall throughout the summer, which then tended to bring 2015 back to mind. In August in particular, ripening accelerated and we decided to start harvesting earlier than ever before, apart maybe from 2018.
This turned out to be the right decision: After a good harvest result for the sparkling base wine, the enormous acceleration in ripeness led us directly into the main harvest. We were also driven forward by the precise forecasts of unusually heavy rainfall. Before the rainy days, we already had more than half of the expected grapes in the cellar. The subsequent flooding in the lowlands of the river landscapes in the Danube region was concentrated in the Tullnerfeld, away from the wine-growing zone. Our higher-lying vineyards allowed us to continue harvesting immediately after the rain, and on October 3rd, we recorded the earliest end of harvest ever at the winery, partly because we brought in fewer grapes compared to 2023 in our uncompromising pursuit of quality.
The wines are developing nicely, well-rounded and with a pleasant concentration of fruit. These characteristics give us reason to be satisfied with the result of this “extreme” vintage. Viticulture is and remains a challenge for every quality-conscious winemaker!