After 20+ busy vintages we have been involved in, it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of all the details of each individual wine year unless it was extreme in some way. At one point I started to relate each vintage to a person or character or at least attribute some human characteristics to it to avoid mixing things up. Looking back on these 20+ vintages, I now have a mental picture of each vintage, a lineup of characters that represent each wine year for me. Not very sophisticated and WSET-like but very practical I can assure you!

2014 for example is the „Voldemort-vintage“. I still get shivers down my spine thinking about how the grapes were killed by botrytis faster than anyone could have said an expelliarmus charm.

2003 was a clear David Hasselhoff (not in his younger years). Just too much of everything and it didn’t age too well either.

Thinking about 2021, I have difficulty in finding an alias. The year was a diva, demanding and never easy on us. There was plenty of drama and serious tragedies for some. It came with a late start and entered the stage with fireworks. It never slowed down and it never let us catch a breath.  We were sometimes on the edge of drought with rain coming the very last minute, sometimes we were close to drowning. 2021 was a bit like a 2-year-old:  you always had to keep an eye on it to prevent some serious damage.  

Only about 4 weeks away from harvest, despite all the difficulties if offered, 2021 is looking beautiful now. We had a lavishly hot summer which is fading into a beautiful autumn and nights are already cool which is perfect for the fine fruit aromas and the lively acidity in the wines. There was enough rain during the vegetation period to guarantee elegance and longevity in the wines.

2021 is extremely promising if you did all the right things in the vineyard and we can’t wait to see what the last few weeks of this wine year will bring.

We’ll let you know which character we have picked for 2021 once the wines are in the cellar! – Any ideas?