Vintages

2000

vintage

For wine growers the year 2000 started in a promising way.  The grapes began the flowering period extremely early which was a good condition for a great vintage.  But over the year the good weather changed.  Heavy rainfalls during the growing season until the harvest started made it difficult for the growers to make right decisions.  This also happened to the Gunderloch and Balbach estates.

The humid summer of 2000 provided perfect conditions for wine growing in the Rothenberg, Pettenthal and Hipping vineyards. The red soil – a red slate – is naturally dry.  A high amount of humidity and heat support the growth of the wines and the ripening of the grapes.  Many hours of sunshine during the months of August and September helped to promote the process of ripening.  The early blossom of the vines helped to compensate for the lack of sunshine in the months of June and July.  The location of our vineyard Rothenberg provided us with further advantages: the red soil which is able to store the heat, the proximity of the River Rhine which helps to balance temperatures and the steep slopes facing south east helped to let grow excellent Riesling wines. 

This year we started to pick the grapes very early on, September 20th. We cut out all the gray rot affected grapes and berries.  This was quite a lot of work and very expensive, but it was worth it.  After three weeks of hard work only the best grapes were left, and this provided the conditions for the producing of delicious tasting dry wines.  Soon after this early picking our Estate Riesling Dry was harvested with a must weight of 85° of Öchsle in the Rothenberg, Pettenthal and Hipping vineyards.

Only a short time later, in the middle of October, the grapes for our „Jean Baptiste“ in the lower terrace of the Nackenheim Rothenberg and the Nierstein Pettenthal were ready for picking.  After that we started to pick the grapes in the middle terrace for the Nackenheim Rothenberg Riesling Spätlese.  Here we selected the noble rot out for Goldkapsel Auslese.

In the middle of October we started to pick the noble rot grapes.  This is a very difficult work which takes a lot of time.  The pickers need a lot of experience and they had to do their work very carefully.  While harvesting these high quality grapes the weather played an important role.

Healthy grapes for dry wines - Pre-picked vineyard - Beginning of noble rot

Advanced Noble Rot

Picking and selecting grapes with noble rot

Raisin like grapes with a high degree of Öchsle

Average was approximately 21 hl / ha in the Nackenheim Rothenberg this year for our "Nackenheim Rothenberg Riesling Dry." Regarding all our Riesling vineyards we have able to earn 55 hl/ha in the average.  Not yet included BA, TBA, and Eiswein.

As I am writing this letter we pressed the grapes for the BA and TBA.  The Beerenauslese measured at 168° Öchsle, and the Trockenbeerenauslese at 204° Öchsle.