Cellar work
Cellar work, contrary to what you might think, has a lot to do with cleanliness. Cleaning and tidying are the main tasks in the cellar. The second most common task is to transfer the mash, juice or wine into the right containers. I like the peace and quiet in the cellar. As I’m a one-oeno-woman show here, I can devote all my senses to making wine during the harvest. Smelling, tasting, analysing, listening, judging, observing and making decisions.
There is no grid here, according to which every year is processed in the same way, but rather the best individual processing solution is sought for each batch from the entire pool of possibilities. Considerations include temperature, cooling or warming, short or long maceration time, whole grapes or de-stemmed mash, degree of turbidity – clarify or leave cloudy, blends, choice of fermentation tank, fermenting juice with or without berries, foot tamping – if so, how long, and so on. Lots of little cogwheels that turn the quality screw.
My philosophy behind this is easy to explain. I like clean wines with character and freshness. I want to bottle natural beauties that tell a story.
The press house and the sandstone vault
In 2007, we demolished the old press house and rebuilt the new one according to today’s hygiene and energy standards. From the outside, however, it looks the same as before and the building materials from the old building (roof tiles and stones) have been reused. The sandstone vault was completely renovated and should be able to survive for another 280 years and provide the grape juice with a good natural indoor climate for development.
Grape delivery
We harvest and pick the grapes by hand. Some batches are harvested by machine after a previous manual selection on the vine so that the grapes can be brought to the cellar at cool night temperatures.
From mid-August, I check all my vineyards and each individual variety both sensory and analytically. The timing is crucial here. Only healthy, undamaged and well-ripened grapes should be taken into the cellar. This is why the work of the harvest assistants is also a matter of trust. I am very grateful to my hard-working helpers for their conscientious support in this important work.
Each bunch is pre-selected, visually & sensorially checked; if necessary, diseased or damaged berries are plucked out individually and only then is the bunch placed in a crate. These crates are loosely filled (so that the grapes remain intact) and placed on the trailer. After the harvest, the crates are driven to the wine cellar, where each individual crate is carried by hand from the trailer to the conveyor belt, which gently slides the grapes into the wine press. At this point, I check all the grapes again and sort them again if necessary.
Destemming and crushing
Destemming - when the berries are plucked from the stalk - is also known as crushing. Every crop has different requirements, so it is an advantage that I can react to this with a continuously variable gearbox and a crushing roller. The paddles strip the grapes over a grid. The berries fall through the grid to the crusher and the stems are transported further and then composted. During crushing, the berries are pressed by two counter-rotating rollers. The crushed berries then fall into the press. During the red winemaking process, these berries are then placed in the fermentation tank. I have a lot of options for this winemaking step, which I also like to adapt to the grape material. This means that sometimes whole grapes are crushed or that berries are only destemmed but not crushed and so on...
Pressing
The juice is extracted from the grapes using a very gentle pneumatic press. This wine press looks like a horizontal steel tank, which has slits on one side through which the juice can run off and on the closed side there is a membrane inside which is inflated slowly and under pressure. This inflation ensures that the juice is pressed out of the berries very gently.
Fermentation
When grape juice becomes wine, or when sugar becomes cabbage, CO2 and heat.
Fermentation also produces the aroma of the wine. It is a very special and extraordinary time in the wineyear - the time of fermentation - the wine-growing. I try to ferment with the yeasts naturally occurring on the berries and in the juice and do not give yeasts in advance. However, if for some reason there is no spontaneous fermentation, I sometimes add yeasts. My "girlfriends" the yeasts perform the miraculous and always exciting transformation from grape juice to wine. My task is limited to controlling temperature, density and sensory observation.
Fermentation
When grape juice turns into wine or when sugar turns into alcohol, CO2 and heat.
The flavour of the wine is also created during fermentation. It is a very special and extraordinary time in the winemaking year - the time of fermentation - the coming of wine. I try to ferment with the natural yeasts found on the grapes and in the juice and do not add any pure yeasts. I keep my own spontaneous yeast population in frozen form every year so that I can use it again if necessary. This - my yeast selection - is like the baker's sourdough that is nurtured and cared for as it performs the unique activity of fermentation. My "friends" the yeasts make the miraculous and always exciting transformation from grape juice to wine possible in the first place. My task is limited to controlling the temperature, density and sensory observation. My next helping friends are the bacteria for malolactic acid degradation. Once the malic acid present has been converted into microbiologically stable lactic acid, the wine can be bottled unfiltered. All living organisms have receptors for lactic acid, so for me this fermentation step is very important for the digestibility, the complexity on the palate and the microbial stability of the wine.
Foot stamped
The red wine mash is "danced" into fermentation.
Pounding the red wine mash is a very traditional and gentle method of extracting the juice from the berries. I "stomped" the red wine mash with my feet for the first time in 2005. The effect is as follows: you can exert good pressure with your feet (perfectly washed, of course) and the seeds in the berries are not damaged. This is particularly important with regard to the tannins.
Bottling wines is a matter of precision!
Cleanliness and precision are the most important factors when bottling. The empty bottles are cleaned and sterilised inside and out, the filling quantities are precisely determined and randomly checked. The filled and sealed bottles are then washed and dried on the outside, labelled and packed in boxes.
Bottle Closure
All good things come in threes - screw cap, Diam, Z-Cork
1) Screw cap
Longcap Vinotwist 30/60 screw cap for white wines and frizzante (screw cap from the Austrian company BT Watzke, made of special aluminium with tin-saranium sealing insert); Shortcap MCA 28 for grape juice.
2) cork
Cork has been used to seal wine bottles for centuries, and wine connoisseurs and sommeliers still love the elegant "pop" when it is pulled out. Thanks to its exceptional and still unrivalled physical properties, cork remains an absolute must for excellent wine storage.
Here we work together with 2 cork companies.
2.1) Diam
Cork is a natural polymer foam based on the substance suberin. The fungi and bacteria that like to live in it cause the typical cork flavour (2,4,6 trichloroanisole = TCA) and musty tones in the wine through their metabolic products, and this not only leads to large losses every year, but often also to dangerous, lasting damage to the image of the winegrowers concerned.
This is why Diam Bouchage has spent years of research work developing the world's only and multi-patented process, namely CORK CLEANSING WITH CO2 HIGH PRESSURE EXTRACTION.
This unique DIAMOND PROCESS has already won several international and national awards, and the results of international wine research institutes have confirmed the high expectations placed on the DIAM.
The main advantages of this innovation in brief:
Perfect cleaning using supercritical CO2 and therefore environmentally friendly and clean, no plasticisers, High-quality binding material, high elasticity, best tightness, no more risk of dust, normal processing - it "pops" when opened, easy uncorking and simple resealing, no premature ageing - the wines remain fresh, pure-toned and can be stored very well, no losses due to cork flavour
2.2) Z-Cork, Lda
For more than 40 years, Z-Cork has demonstrated that it sets the highest standards for the quality and excellence of its corks. Joao Pedro, the head of the company, is aware of the exceptionally important task of his cork stoppers, which is the direct contact between the natural product cork and the noble contents of the bottle, the wine or sparkling wine.
Z-Cork takes on this task, this commitment and works hard every day to fulfil these tasks with a top end product: where cutting-edge technology is combined with tradition and comprehensive know-how. Once a year Joao Pedro comes to visit me in Göttlesbrunn, and at these meetings we both benefit from the exchange of our experience, and we grow in the high demands we place on our products. Every year we promise to ensure the highest possible quality with a handshake. The corks I receive from Z-Cork are sorted by hand, but the cork oaks are also selected by Joao Pedro and his father to the best of their knowledge and with many years of experience and a trained eye. Cleanliness and perfectionism in production combined with rural craftsmanship. I am very happy to have found such an experienced and committed partner company for this important product for the preser vation of wine quality.
