First Week of 2012 Harvest

Here the summary of the first week…. we are very happy with the results so far.

The frequent rain showers which cooled down the air temperature had only encouraged little growth of Botrytis. On Monday and Tuesday we brought in the fully ripe Pinot Noir grapes which would not benefit from further rainfall. The Rivaner grape were very ripe with very few infected berries therefore we decided to harvest all of our plots this week.

Rivaner TraubenRivaner TraubenAm Rivaner ernten

Such good quality of fruit, we had to ensure that it was harvest with care and transfer straight to the winery. Beautiful Aromas of yellow stoned fruit…. nearly as intensive as last years.

Our team had such a good pace that they were able to harvest our Auxerrois grapes as well, even though it rained in-between.

Auxerrois TraubenRegenAuxerrois nach dem RegenAuxerrois

After heavy rainfall the ground was sodden and very slippy that is why we couldn’t use our Tractor to drive through the vines.

Thankfully our Pinot Gris SJ vines are relatively short rows, so we were able to carry out all the grapes per hand.

Grauer Burgunder SJ im BottichWir ernten Grauer Burgunder SJGrauer Burgunder SJ verlesenGrauer Burgunder SJ untersuchen

Our Pinot Noir have reached their full ripeness. Here we have to work a lot by hand ….

On Saturday our first batch of Pinot Gris, growing on higher elevation and loamy soil, were harvested.

Grauburgunder vom LößbodenGrauburgunderGrauer BurgunderVogelfraß am Grauburgunder

In the Afternoon we harvested the next batch of Pinot Noir growing on Volcanic soil.

This week we will continue harvesting Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and our first batch of Pinot Blanc. In-between we will be bringing in our Cabernet Dorsa and most likely our Cabernet Cortis as well.

Somehow all the grapes have come to their optimum ripeness at the same time…. Intensive Aromas and good balance of acidity. We expect to be able to finish our harvest within next fortnight.