Vintage 2011

A Prime Year Despite Meteorological Somersaults?

Looking back in wine history we find a peculiar analogy: both vintage 1811 and 1911 were of outstanding quality.

The earliest shooting and blooming on record - prompted by an unusual warm spingtime - seemed to point towards a good vintage, however, frost damages in May, a hail storm in August and frequent rain paired with low temperatures during summer put a damper on our optimism.

In the end, however, everything turned out perfect! While normally it takes 100 days from blooming to harvesting, this year up to 160 days passed by, clearly favouring the development of distinctive flavours in the grapes, especially when it comes to our late ripening Rieslings in steeply sloping sites. We made full use of this potential waiting for the grapes to reach peak ripeness.

We started picking on September 26th, instead of mid October as usual. Must weights had increased considerably during the "golden" autumn weeks, with temperatures reaching 30°C and more, and volumes exceeded our expectations. The harvest produced excellent wines with delicate acidity, elegant mineral notes and high density. An average must weight of 85-105 degrees Oechsle left us very pleased indeed. We even managed to harvest a Trockenbeerenauslese with a sugar content of more than 300 degrees Oechsle!

So, all that remains to be said, is: Our vintage 2011 is the best so far in this century. In Germany we refer to such a wine as  "Jahrhundertwein", meaning "wine of the century".

The 2009 vintage

Magnificent and delightful

A vintage that makes history

The winter of 2008/2009 was harsh, however our vineyards survived without major frost damage. Budding started very early in 2009. It was unusually warm in April and May and this caused early blossoming that normally results in an early harvest. But it came quite differently: from June to August we had changeable weather; the soil was sufficiently moist at all times. The grapes benefitted from cool nights and moderately warm days. The yield was slightly reduced by rain during the budding period, the quality however kept increasing in the remaining grapes. Some sites had to be defoliated to be able to harvest aromatic, healthy and fully matured grapes.  Some growers started harvesting early in october, we however waited until the middle of October when the grapes had reached their physiological maturity. Compared to last year the harvest was short 10 - 15%. However, it provided a wide range of outstanding wines: mineral-rich dry grapes, fruity, elegantly dry wines, and peaks of fruity noble sweetness.