How we made it
The disastrous 2020 frost vintage completely wiped away this vineyard as well. It was heart-breaking. A few weeks later though a good amount of secondary buds broke and quite a few actually had grapes on them. Ripening four weeks later than usual with a still very small yield this 2020 Schwarzriesling (a German name for Pinot Meunier) made the most unique and rare Fledermaus vintage ever bottled.
All bunches were destemmed by hand. The berries then stayed in macro bins for about a week for a round of semi-carbonic maceration before being pressed. The wine finished fermentation in a stainless steel tank and rested on the full lees until it was racked and bottled in April 2022.
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: October 2020
Semi-carbonic maceration for a week, malolactic fermentation and aging on the lees in steel
Bottled: April 2022
Alcohol: 12 %
Acid: 6.3 g/l
Total SO2 (nothing added): 4 mg/l
Residual sugar: 0.9 g/l
Bottle size: 0.75 l