From vineyard to cellar

Up until now, vintage 2012 has been a lot of fun – albeit enormously labor intentisve. Unfortunately, with the exception of a possible Eiswein, I don’t see any dessert wines on the horizon at this time. We checked the grapes again today. They’re not drying up. It’s simply far too damp. And the few that have shriveled are not really picture perfect. Nevertheless, we tasted them this morning and picked a few bunches. Perhaps they’ll suffice for a nice Auslese, if that, but nothing more. We haven’t totally given up yet. Maybe in Rüdesheim we’ll find some raisined berries, but quite honestly, I’m fairly skeptical. This is not the year for lusciously sweet wines – at least not in the Rheingau. According to colleagues I’ve spoken with, this seems to be the case just about everywhere here. Of course there will be some dessert wines in 2012, but not everywhere and only in small quantities. Botrytis just didn’t happen this year. On the one hand, that’s good news; on the other, a bit of Trockenbeerenauslese would have been nice...Naturally, you can force the issue by covering the vines with plastic sheeting, but no one really does that.
Dirk Würtz • 20 November 2012