We’re expanding. Finally. The first year (2013) we went for two small parcels to get started small, learn and improve. The second year (2014) we increased the sizes of the parcels a bit but were pretty unfortunate (frost, cutworms, rot). So again a very small harvest. Time to expand a bit more seriously. With a new vineyard.
And we found one. It’s pretty much “just around the corner”, a 10 minute walk away from the winery. It’s a good hectare and it’s hidden so well must people don’t even know it exists. At one end of our town there is a little hill, the Eselsberg. It’s a good pile of shell limestone – the typical terroir of our region. The stones from the hill were used as building material while vineyards were planted on the top. Then the town grew and it grew around the vineyard which is now surrounded by houses and gardens.
The family owning it loves the place and refuses to utilize it for more houses. But they can’t farm it themselves and that’s where we come in. The current version of the vineyard was planted in 1988. A little over three acres of Schwarzriesling (the steeper part) and a good acre of Müller-Thurgau (the flat top part). Strong, old vines. It was farmed conventionally until this summer and that’s about to change obviously. It’s the first time I’ll see myself how the soil and the plants will change when removed from the drip of chemical fertilizer, not being protected by insecticides and kept clean by herbicides. I’m really excited about it.
It’s not relevant for the vines and the wine but in the middle of the vineyard there is this cute little cottage which is actually more of a ruin. Very romantic. I see a new side-project on the horizon …