Start of the harvest... the starting signal for the 2023 vintage!
NOW it's finally here: the long-awaited moment when the harvest begins! We can hardly wait to harvest the first grapes of the 2023 vintage. If you want to experience this magical time, you can swap your office desk for the field and work for a day or three weeks (and everything in between!). Only those who have ever been covered in grape juice from head to toe know how precious a glass of wine really is.
You want to know what you are getting yourself into?
The day begins at 8 a.m. The grape buckets and grape shears are prepared, water for washing hands is filled and the grape carts are checked one last time, attached and screwed together. Then there is a final coffee together and by 8.30 a.m. at the latest, we head off to the vineyards.
The dress code: layered! Wellington boots, hiking boots, sneakers... depending on the weather, you'll need all three on one day. Also long and short trousers, alternating between them, because it's often still cool early in the morning and gets hot later. Definitely a hat or cap and a good raincoat. Ideally a bit of sunscreen and then of course good gloves...
It's all about the tools. A good chef doesn't lend out his knives - and a real winemaker doesn't let go of his grape shears! Even among grape shears there are particularly sleek models that make work a pleasure. Our winegrowing engineer Uncle Otto, at 85 years old, still goes to the vineyard every day - with his very own grape shears, with which he has cut THOUSANDS of grapes in over fifty years of his professional career, of course. We naturally lend our own grape shears to our hobby harvest helpers.
Only those who take breaks can work well in the long term. At 12 o'clock sharp (we are very traditional!) we have a warm lunch together, cooked especially for the vineyard crew by Kristine. There is also always a vegetarian option. We all sit around the table together and laugh a lot while we enjoy the main course and the sweet dessert. At 1 p.m. we have an espresso shot to overcome the afternoon slump and then we head straight back to the vineyards.
At around 5 p.m. we all return to the winery. The tools and grape carts are cleaned and everyone helps to process the freshly picked grapes. A sweet scent is in the air, you are sticky from head to toe, but the sight of the piled-up grapes is always a highlight that makes you happy. At around 7 p.m. we all go to the bar with dirty trousers and enjoy the after-work spritzer. A long day at the most beautiful workplace in the world comes to an end...
Those who are still fit meet up after the shower to drink spritzers (that's our Palatinate expression for chatting and drinking spritzers). Some of our harvest workers had already spent half the night playing games, but turned up on time the next morning (with slightly smaller eyes than usual :-) ).
In fact, we are expecting a difficult harvest this year . The Institute for Viticulture and Oenology in Neustadt even put it so bluntly in its last newsletter: " The situation is not good. […] The stage is set for a perfect storm. […] "
Why? We've already been hit hard by mildew . In addition, the spotted wing drosphila suzukii has had a real orgy this year. It is a pest that was probably introduced via imported fruit from Asia. It was first detected in Germany in 2011, but today it is (unfortunately) no longer an unknown quantity. In 2023, the weather conditions were perfect for the critters. They pierce the grapes and turn the grape juice into vinegar. Thick-skinned grapes like our Riesling don't mind at all, the sting just bounces off. But our more delicate grapes like Dornfelder and St. Laurent have been hit hard this year.
Something like Autan is very expensive for grapes, so we have to remove all the infected grapes as quickly as possible. This is called negative harvesting... the good ones go to the drop, the bad ones go to the crop... it was like that with Cinderella and nothing has changed in the 21st century. Sometimes it's a race against time... and at times we even decide to harvest before the grapes reach the ideal point of ripeness in order to save what can still be saved.
But the mood in the vineyard is anything but somber - because when you have experience since 1788 , a single difficult vintage is not so easy to throw you off course. Our Uncle Otto says that he has experienced very different years. Wine does keep you young, because he is still very sprightly and mentally flexible, stomps through the vineyards and is a big fan of our new PiWi varieties , instead of condemning the new-fangled stuff. It's a team like that to work with!
Are you joining us this year?
Your hard-harvesting counts
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