How we made it
The second vintage of our red “Fledermaus” has been harvested in September 2016 and bottled in February 2017. 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. And as the vineyard had been treated well before we took over the plants didn’t suffer from that switch – at the cost of a reduced yield. The grapes were picked on one of the first harvest days as we feel Pinot Meunier benefits a lot from a solid acid-backbone. For a duration of seven days we mixed destemmed berries which were only partly crushed to get some carbonic effect. After pressing the wine finished fermentation in a stell tank and rested on the full lees until it was bottled in February 2017. It became a bit more tannic and “serious” than the previous vintage but also more clean.
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: 14.09.2016
Yield: 40 hl/ha
Semi-carbonic maceration for 7 days
Gently pressed in a pneumatic press
Malolactic fermentation and aging on the lees in steel
Bottled: February 2017
Bottles produced: 3,400
Alcohol: 12%
Acid: 5.4 g/l
Total SO2 (nothing added): 12 mg/l
Residual sugar: 0.7 g/l
Bottle size: 0.75 l