How we made it
The grapes for one of our favorite wines grow on a fairly steep plot close to the winery on young shell-limestone. The top and the bottom soil of the vineyard are more focused on clay, the middle section is dry and rocky. Vines are about 35 years old and have been farmed organically for more than 20 years.
In a disastrous night of frost in May 2020 all the shoots and grapes that had grown so far died. It was a few weeks later though when some of the secondary buds broke and new shoots started growing, not many but some with small grapes on them. Picked super late in the season with 15 g/l of total acidity we had just enough grapes to destem and do a little skin-ferment for a good week until the wine was almost dry. It filled only one barrique and while it was hard to imagine the total acid dropped almost by 10g/l (!) over time and that rarest of all Heimat vintages became an unexpected beauty. Racked the summer after harvest to settle in steel until being bottled in April 2022.
Fact sheet
Variety: Silvaner
Location: Kitzinger Eselsberg
Soil: Shell limestone
Harvest: October 2020
Destemmed and fermented on the skins for about a week
Malolactic fermentation and aging in an old barrique
Bottled: April 2022
Alcohol: 12 %
Acidity: 5.9 g/l
Residual sugar: 0 g/l
Total SO2 (nothing added): 7 mg/l
Bottle size: 0.75 l