It’s a wonderful thing to work with animals in agriculture. For viniculture one of the most interesting species are sheep. They can be used to feed down the greening in the vineyard or to get the bottom leaves of the vines removed. We have a few vineyards with tricky embankments where I have to spend a lot of time with… Read more →
After three weeks off the harvest preparations are under way now. And we have great support this year. Besides Antoine who’s been working with us since April we now have Stephanie and Nick joining the crew – welcome guys! The first thing to do obviously was an extensive visit of all vineyards. Can you guess which variety I’m explaining on this pic? The… Read more →
July is the last heavy-work month before harvest with a major focus on leaf management. Although it could have been worse the weather was not ideal the last weeks. This year we’re getting all the rain we missed last season. Key problem still: Peronospora. Specifically the Müller-Thurgau has been hit hard. The early infections will reduce the yield quite a bit.… Read more →
In June time flies by. This year in particular. Due to the massive amounts of rain we had the vines grew extraordinarily fast and strong. Pretty much exactly the opposite of what we saw last year. We struggled to keep up with all the work sometimes but in the end we’ve managed it very well I think. All the shoots… Read more →
Welcome back to the monthly vineyard updates! In the last four weeks all vines have exploded. With all the frost horror stories we’ve heard from friends we have to say we were really lucky in the end. Six nights of fire did cost quite a bit of money but decreased the overall damage to a rather low percentage. Only one Müller-Thurgau… Read more →
Nope, this is not a story about Cat Steven’s famous song. It is a story about wine. When Michael and I decided to come back from London in order to join Michael’s parents winery it was all clear: We wanted to do it our own way. At this time it wasn’t so clear how this way would exactly look like.… Read more →
Spring had started so nicely as the interns and I spent the first weeks together in the vineyards. The first workdays in a tee, the first barbecue,… It all ended last Friday. Within a day the temperature went down to the freeze point. Being in the middle of bud break it’s a dangerous time for frost. There is a specific spot at… Read more →
From time to time a vineyard benefits from fertilization. Our legumes are great collectors (and suppliers) of nitrogen but we felt like we could need an extra boost to improve the percentage of humus in our soil. And compost is the first choice. We’re not quite there yet with our plans for producing it ourselves. So we’ve started looking for a good… Read more →
Now that we’re a few weeks into the year pruning is the first piece of work on the list. And such an important one. Der Schneider macht die Kleider is an old German saying translating to the taylor makes the clothes. First of all it’s about not overloading the vines. Specifically after the super dry summer we had last year. The vines… Read more →
All the wine related work I currently have to do is checking every single barrel/tank at least once a week. You want to ensure that the yeast is in shape, that the wood doesn’t do anything but provide an awesome bin and that the micro bacteria don’t go crazy. There is also a little bit of stirring involved to keep… Read more →
