From vineyard to cellar

It’s neither Eiswein nor must from rotten grapes that’s running from the presses into tanks – it’s actualy juice from relatively healthy grapes. That’s fairly incredible. At the moment, I can’t remember harvesting grapes like this so late in the season. In the 1990s in the Rheingau, when I was still at the Robert Weil estate, there was once something similar – but I can’t remember for certain. In any case, this was the longest harvest I’ve ever experienced. We’re now in the eighth week. Incidentally, this all gibes with the prognosis I made weeks ago...

 

As far as quality is concerned, we now have a considerably sharper, clearer picture of how things look. The late-harvested grapes, in fact, were completely ripe and breathtakingly aromatic. I can’t remember ever having sampled such grape musts. Everything is fermenting slowly, extremely slowly, but constantly. Now and then, I’ve been a bit nervous and have wondered whether it’s all going too slowly. In the meantime, though, I’ve calmed down. Actually, some of the musts have completely stopped fermenting. This is not a big problem, though; they’ll start up again next year...

 

What’s been missing to date are the ripeness levels needed for the lusciously sweet specialties, at least here in the Rheingau. When I’ve had an ear to the ground and looked around, I can still see some fungus-infested grapes hanging on the vine. Like everyone, I’m hoping that the weather during the next ten days will cooperate so that we can still pick some beautifully dried-up grapes. I’m quite skeptical, though, as to whether this will happen. On the other hand, I’m completely convinced that we’ll be able to harvest a good Eiswein this year. The prospects for an early, hard frost are quite good. Time will tell whether my weather oracle is on track...