It's August and the only reason why you didn't hear from us for some time now ist that summertime is always extremely busy and we have lots of work to do in our vinyards. Especially in June and July we spend most of the time out in the vinyards and when there is some left we have to bottle the first red wines of the last vintage. But that's done and a great 2010 vintage is already foreseeable!
The Leafwork is now almost completely done, there might still be a few grapes or leafes left to remove but that's it. Also last year's reds except the Barriques have been bottled and are now further developing in their bottles in our cellar. Now we can for the first time really talk abouth this year's vintage and how the 2010 harvest might turn out!
The grapes have now almost reached their full size but still they are very hard to touch. The red varieties have started to change colour, the whites are of course still completely green (see picture).
For our vines this year was very good. Many hot days, still enough rain and no heavy storms are a great base for a good vintage. We still need warm and dry conditions until after the harvest but there is already a really good chance that 2010 will become one of the greater vintages of the last decades. Of course we can't say for sure until we have harvested the grapes and they are safe under the roof and in our cellar, but we are pretty confident about this. We are already very much looking forward to about mid September when the harvest will most likely start.
But what makes this year really special is that we can for the first time harvest certified organic grapes. The three year long changeover is completed and we can now start to profit from our efforts. We had to learn and experience lots of new things with the last couple of vintages and were already pretty satisfied with how they turned out. But this year is of course really something special and we'll give our best! You may then judge how the vintage developed as soon as the first wines are bottled. For the Junger Welschriesling 2010 this will be only a few weeks after the harvest, the others will then be bottled in spring and summer of 2011 respectively. Of course we want to give them a little time to develop.