Harvest report 2015

After a warm und dry winter, bud burst appeared pretty fast and continously. A big hail strom on the 7th of may, which destroyed lots of vineyards in the Kamptal and Kremstal region, didn't affect us luckily. The spring time was warm with some highly needed rainfalls, the soils were dried out already to that point of time.

In the first week of july, summer arrived. And it became hot, very hot. Three heatweaves from july to september gave distinction to this warmest time of the year, it nearly looked like a vintage like 2003 and 2006. Temperatures going up to 35 degrees of Celsius and even more became normal, but couldn't stop us doing our work in the vineyards. Due to the heat and droughtness, lot's of vines, espcially young plants, got water stress. At the beginning of these heatwaves, older vines had some advantages because of their bigger root system. Most of our vineyards stay under irrigation, so we were able to help them a little and deliver water from the Danube river. Until end of august there was no rainfall at all, later two rainy days brought water to develop the berries and increase the size of the grapes.

September was one of the most beautiful month of the year, so we were allowed to harvest nearly perfect and healthy grapes in october. In the middle of october a few rainy days stopped our harvest for a bit of time but luckily cold night temperatures prevented big botrytis infections. We finished picking grapes for dry wines at the 30th of october, about one week earlier than normal.

In the middle of november we harvested botrytized infected grapes, in Austria better known for "Trockenbeerenauslese", from Grüner Veltliner grapes. Harvest 2015 was done. A great vintage in quality and quantity. Simply great...