How we made it
The 2017 harvest of the red “Fledermaus” was one of the most painful experiences we’ve had yet. The grapes were beautiful on the outside but many of them had acetic acid rot inside. Every grape had to be cut in half and examined, much went to the ground. It took us three days but the effort paid off and we ended up with a beautiful clean wine.
It’s made of Schwarzriesling / Pinot Meunier growing on shell limestone. The vineyard is pretty much in the middle of our town. We started farming it organically in 2014.
Due to the acetic acid the destemmed berries were macerated for four days only. After pressing the wine finished fermentation in a steel tank and rested on the full lees until it was bottled in July 2018.
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: Schwarzriesling / Pinot Meunier
Location: Kitzinger Eselsberg
Soil: shell limestone
Harvest: 15.09.2016
Yield: 30 hl/ha
Maceration for 4 days
Malolactic fermentation and aging on the lees in steel
Bottled: July 2018
Bottles produced: 2,500
Alcohol: 11.5 %
Acid: 5.4 g/l
Total SO2 (nothing added): 6 mg/l
Residual sugar: 0 g/l
Bottle size: 0.75 l