Sommer ·
Summer in the vineyards - no time for the hammock!
Dear friends of good wine,
the grapes are beginning to change color - we are making great strides towards the 2022 vintage! From now on it will be exciting: the ripening of the berries has begun. Sugar is built up, acidity is broken down and finally the flavor is added! And of course you can already tell white from red wine with the naked eye. Everything is still possible - the quality of the grapes in the 2022 vintage will only be decided in the next few weeks.
But that doesn't mean that we're currently lying in the hammock! We keep a close eye on the grapes so that we can intervene in good time if the vines are no longer doing well.
In the last few weeks we have been working intensively on the defoliation . With this measure we remove leaves around the grapes so that damp leaves do not lead to mold growth later in the year. It's important that this is done early enough to allow the grapes to get used to the sudden sunlight. An abrupt change from shade to sun too late can actually lead to sunburn and thus crop failure!
A second measure was the green harvest . Thanks to a good spring, we have a lot of grapes on the vines, but the vines cannot get this amount through the summer. Quality counts for us, not quantity , so we cut off part of the green grapes. These are left on the ground and thus return to the natural cycle. The other berries on the vine have more space to grow, get more nutrients and therefore have a better water supply.
A special topic this summer is the great heat, accompanied by a lack of water . We are not currently irrigating our vineyards, but perhaps this will become an issue in the future. It's much drier than last year: We haven't had any rain worth mentioning in the Palatinate for five weeks.
That means hard work for the vines! These now need a lot of strength to finally develop the grapes. The consequence: they don't have much juice yet. But every coin has two sides. The advantage this year: It is so dry that there is hardly any mildew, which means that pesticides can be used even more sparingly than usual .
So the next few weeks will be exciting! We are currently reckoning that the grape harvest will start in the first week of September!
In addition to the work in the vineyard, we are of course active in the winegrower's café and in the (for us) new forest huts , which are enthusiastically accepted. This is the time for tourists from all over the world and we welcome many familiar and new faces. And if you don't come by yourself, you can order your supply of wine straight home for enjoyable evenings.
Enjoy the summer!
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