It just doesn’t rain. We live in a pretty dry area but the lack of water we’re suffering from this year is extreme. A lot of colleagues have been watering their vines the last months as good as they could and so have we. But we can’t do it all the time and everywhere so we have to deal with the consequences. Meaning we’ll have to remove grapes (again) so the vines aren’t overloaded. Overloaded vines can take serious damage plus the grapes will be of questionable quality. Here is a quick overview of all our sites.
The Silvaner vineyard in Iphofen we got this year is one of the scariest spots. The vines aren’t that strong and it’s an extra hot & dry hill. You can see that the leaves are not deeply green but slightly yellow which means the vines are thirsty.
The grapes are still looking good but it’s too many I fear.
One of the mice living in that vineyard ran away before I could take a picture. So far they haven’t started nibbling grapes, let’s hope they won’t eat too much … This vineyard has been watered once but it was a drop in the bucket in the end.
Close by there is a Müller-Thurgau which I intent to ferment on the skins. Nicely loose grapes (good for rot!) but also a lot of weak and thirsty vines.
It’s a little better in Sulzfeld where we have our Regent vineyard. We’ve removed most of the leaves so it’s not a welcoming place for the spotted-wing drosophila. We watered this vineyard last week so hopefully it will be ok with the load it’s carrying.
The grapes started turning blue the last days.
A surprising spot is our new Schwarzriesling / Pinot Meunier vineyard. Our intern Michael has been removing shoots growing out of the stems and the soil today.
We’re hoping for a good yield here!
In a few rows the grapes have been cut in the middle to reduce the yield and get some heavier stuff.
There is a small parcel of Dornfelder in that vineyard which is also looking fine. The shoots are turning brown already as you can see.
And there is our second parcel of Müller-Thurgau, also several weak candidates but still a good yield to expect. This will be an early one to harvest.
A quick look at the 2014 planted Riesling – the only vineyard with a proper watering system. An thanks to that it has been growing ok.
Over to the second small parcel of Dornfelder – we’re ok here too.
The main parcel next to it is Domina. Old vines, low yields and some generally weak spots – it’s not an easy vineyard to deal with.
But considering the circumstances it’s doing ok and will hopefully become one of our premium reds.
Last but not least there is our Heimat Silvaner vineyard. A third of it has an old, wacky water supply which needs constant repairs – but it helps a lot in a year like this!
The vineyard is looking surprisingly good – thanks to all the extra work we’ve put into it (and yes, I have removed that small useless grape on the left).
We’ll be on holiday the next two weeks. On the one hand I can’t wait to see how the grapes are doing at the end of the month. On the other hand I’m a little scared of it. It’s going to be an interesting harvest – fingers crossed!