How we made it
The first vintage of the white “Fledermaus” has been harvested in September 2015 and bottled in April 2016. It’s core is 80% Müller-Thurgau from the “bat vineyard” growing on shell limestone. (While tasting the young wines we found it to be a wonderful match adding 20% of Silvaner so this became the cuvée we finally bottled. The vineyard of the core wine is pretty much in the middle of our town. We started farming it organically in 2014. 2015 was a vintage of dryness and low-acidity, this Müller-Thurgau was branded by both factors. The grapes were simply pressed, the juice sedimented, racked and aged on the full lees until bottling. The wine has become one of the most popular barrel samples we’ve brought to fairs in early 2016. The gentle Müller-Thurgau fruit has become extraordinary creamy and we feel it improves further with every breath of air it takes. The low acidity makes it easily accessible and the interection of style and variety makes the wine extremely stable.
The story
In 2014 we took over a vineyard situated in the town of Kitzingen where our winery is situated too. It used to be outside of town but over time houses and gardens grew around it, it’s a very unusual and unlikely place. Shortly after posting the first pictures of the vineyard we met a guy who dedicates a good part of his life to the bats of our area.
Together with local bat hero Christian Söder we developed the idea of a cycle: we get guano from local bat colonies – a wonderful fertilizer. In return we give a share of the revenue back to the bats via the Landesbund für Vogelschutz. And we put a bunch of bat boxes in the vineyard to offer opportunities for those lovely animals to hang out as they hunt at night – about 15 different species as Christian found out! The bat on the label is the grey long-eared bat which has become very rare in our area. It’s also incredibly cute and we want to help it stay around.
Fact sheet
Variety: Müller-Thurgau (80%), Silvaner (20%)
Location: Kitzinger Eselsberg
Soil: Shell limestone
Harvest: 23.09.2015
Crushed and pressed in a pneumatic press
Malolactic fermentation and aging on the lees in steel
Bottled: April 2016
Bottles produced: 3,800
Alcohol: 11.5%
Acid: 4.5 g/l
Total SO2 (nothing added): 10 mg/l
Residual sugar: 1.0 g/l
Bottle size: 0.75 l