Upside Down

Vintage 2000 was the first vintage I actively took part in, hand-picking my first grapes and starting to learn about viticulture and winemaking.

Until last week, I seriously had the feeling that there’s hardly anything out there in the vineyards that can still surprise me but this vintage has turned everything upside down and left me speechless.

After a wet winter and early spring, unusually warm temperatures in February and a hot hot hot summer, we were prepared to start harvesting 2-3 weeks ahead of a “normal” wine year. I have been checking on the grapes regularly, keeping a close eye on ripeness and deciding that we wanted to bring some fresh and crisp Grüners in at a rather early stage to have enough nice acidity and fresh fruit aromas for blending with the riper Grüners that we like to give more hanging time on the vines. This was probably the best idea I have ever had because within one week of 32 degrees and warm wind, sugar gradation in the grapes made a huge leap.

Looking at some Welschriesling grapes in one of Poysdorf’s top-vineyard sites (a very warm, sunny spot) and finding that our they were approaching “Auslese” gradations on September 6th, I had to sit down for a few minutes to tell myself to breathe and not panic.

15 minutes later we had an emergency meeting where we decided that we would turn this harvest upside down- meaning that we would harvest what was still fresh, light and fruity as soon as possible and bring the other vineyards that were already high in ripeness in later. This is definitely nothing that I ever thought I would do. If anybody had told me that 10 years ago I would have doubted their mental health.

It seems that with climate change progressing, we will have to become even more flexible, innovative and find unconventional solutions to new problems.

Another thing that I am really grateful for right now is our harvesting machine. With 10 am temperatures of 25°C + we went out at 4 am every morning to pick the grapes while they were still cold. This enabled us to start fermentation with clear and aromatic musts.

We still have about 2 weeks of harvest ahead of us but thankfully, the heat wave is over now and after some rain today, we can continue picking at nice and cool temperatures.

I wonder what else this wine year will come up with before we can bring this harvest to a (hopefully) happy ending.