No longer able to harvest grapes for an ice wine in early 2012

 

Record-breaking double-digit temperatures above freezing made headlines in early January – and the frosty temperatures our grapes needed to thoroughly freeze were nowhere in sight. According to estate manager Dirk Würtz a few weeks ago: “We’ve put our ice wine harvest on hold, and slowly but surely, time’s running out. If it doesn’t turn really cold within the next couple of weeks, we can kiss 2011 ice wine goodbye...” No one was hoping so much for a cold snap as wine-growers. After all, ice wine depends one hundred percent on the weather.

Shortly thereafter, it was clear: we were no longer able to harvest grapes for an ice wine in early 2012. Ironically, temperatures in February also made headlines – with record-breaking temperatures below freezing. Unfortunately, this icy period arrived a bit too late. “The grapes we had saved for ice wine were no longer in good shape. Of course, we still could have produced an ice wine, but in order to make it drinkable, we would have had to pull out all the stops...use all kinds of fining agents and other means of cellar technology. But because this is precisely what we don’t want to do, we opted to skip vintage 2011 ice wine,” explained Dirk Würtz later in the month.

See our estate manager Dirk Würtz in an interview on ice wine aired on Hessischer Rundfunk TV (regional TV station) during the evening weather program “Alle Wetter.”