Harvest 2016

It’s the end of September and the 2016 harvest is almost but not yet completely over. Still, there is already time to look back at this year’s vintage.

The harvest went exactly as expectet, unfortunately. Hail and especially late frost at the end of April have effected our grapes quite badly. The yield lies somewhere in between a quarter and a third of what we’d expect in a normal year. Of course that’s bad, but working with nature, one has to accept such outcomes. Last vintage was as great as one could possibly wish for, this year it’s the exact opposite.

Still, we hope to not run out of wine for the moment. The good 2015 vintage left us with some white wine reserves. Regarding reds, we usually have one harvest stored to age in our cellar anyway which also helps to bridge a small harvest. And bad as it was, we did harvest some grapes this year as well. It’s not much but the grapes we did get where extremely ripe and sweet. Of course this was to be expectet, the less grapes a vine has to carry, the more concentrated and well nourished they will be. No question that this leads to great wines as well.

However, 2016 does remain a vintage that we won’t remember too fondly. Actually we’re already looking forward to a better 2017. But before that we still have to complete this year’s harvest. Our Cabernet Sauvignon is still out ripening in the warm autumn sun. Cabernet starts to grow relatively late into the season and thus it was only lightly hit by April’s late frost. The grapes then also need much more time to ripen but the current weather is just ideal for that. In short, our Cabernet Sauvignon will not rescue this year’s outcome, but it will suffice for a conciliatory finish with some great grapes at least!