The cellar work
The cellar work, contrary to what might have been assumed, has a lot to do with cleanliness. Cleaning and keeping clean are the main tasks in the cellar. The second most common activity is mash, transporting the juice or wine into the right containers. I like the peace and quiet in the cellar. Since I am “here” a One Woman show, I can take care of all the senses with the winemaking during the harvest. Smell, taste, analyze, hear, judge and make decisions.
There is no grid for which the same processing is carried out every year, but from the whole pool of possibilities the individual best processing solution is sought for each batch. The considerations concern the temperature, cool or warm, short or long mash life, whole grapes or detrapped mash, turbidity degrees – clarify or cloudy, blends, fermentation container selection, digest juice with or without berries, stamp the foot – if so, how long, and so on. Many small gears that turn on the quality screw.
My philosophy behind it is simply explained. I like clean wines with character and freshness. Natural beauties that tell a story, I want to bring in the bottles.
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 like it used to be and the usable building materials of the old building (roof tiles and stones) have also been reused. The sandstone area has been completely renovated and should be able to last another 200 years and provide the vine juice with a good natural indoor climate for development.
Grape delivery
The harvest, the wine-reading takes place with us by hand.
From mid-August, I control all my vineyards and every single variety sensory as well as analytical. This is crucially about the right time. Only healthy undamaged and well-ripened grapes should be taken to the cellar. Therefore, the work of the readers is also a great matter of trust. I am very grateful to my hard-working helpers for accompanying this important work with conscientious joy.
Each grape is pre-selected, visually & sensory controlled; if necessary, sick or damaged berries are plucked individually and only then the grape is placed in a box. These boxes are loosely filled (so that the grapes remain unharmed) and placed on the trailer. After the harvest, the boxes are led to the wine cellar, where each individual box is carried manually from the trailer to the rebler. There I check the whole grape material again and sort again if necessary.
Rebeling and squeezing
The abberries – when the berries are plucked from the stem scaffold – are also called rebels. Each reading material has different requirements, so it is advantageous that I can react to this with a continuously adjustable gearbox and the same crushing roller. The paddles strip the grapes over a grid. The berries fall through the grille further to the squeegee and the stems are transported further and subsequently composted. When squeezing, the berries are pressed by two opposite rollers. Afterwards, the crushed berries fall into the press. When making red wine, these berries are then put into the fermentation container. In this winemaking step I have a lot of possibilities, which I also like to agree on the grape material. So it also happens that sometimes whole grapes are squeezed or that berries are only agberebeltbutd but not squeezed and so on…
Extraction
The juice is extracted from the berries with a very gentle pneumatic press. This wine press looks like a lying steel tank, which has slits on one side through which the juice can run away and on the closed side there is a membrane lying inside which is then inflated. This inflating pushes the juice out of the berry 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.
Maturation
When grape juice becomes wine, or when sugar becomes alcohol, 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.
Foot stamped
The red wine mash is “danced” into the fermentation
The stamping of the red wine mash is a very traditional and gentle method to get the juice from the berries. In 2005 I “treaded” the red wine mash for the first time. The effect is as follows: With the feet (of course perfectly washed) you can apply a good pressure and the seeds in the berries are not injured. This is particularly important with regard to tannins.
Bottling
Filling the wines is a matter of precision
When filling, cleanliness & accuracy count above all. The empty bottle is cleaned & sterlized inside and outside, the filling quantities are precisely defined and checked randomly. The finished & sealed bottles are then packed in cartons.
Closure
All good things are 3 – Screw Cap, Diam, Z-Cork
Screw cap
Longcap Stelvin for white wines and frizzante (rotary closure by the French company Alcan, made of special aluminium); Shortcap for grape juice
Cork
Cork has been used for centuries to seal wine bottles, and customers and sommeliers still love the noble “plopp” when pulling out. Due to its exceptional, to this day unsurpassed, physical properties, cork remains an absolute must for an excellent wine storage capacity.
Here we work together with 2 cork companies.
Diam
Cork is a natural polymer foam based on the substance suberin. The fungi and bacteriums that like to live in them, cause the typical cork taste (2,4,6 trichloranisol = TCA) and mufftones in the wine, and this not only leads to great losses every year, but often also to dangerous, sustainable Damage to the image of the affected winegrowers.
This is why Oeneo has spent years of research developing the world’s only and multi-patented process, namely the KORKREINIGUNG MITTELS CO2 HIGH-PRESSURE EXTRACTION.
This unique DIAMANTVERFAHREN has already been awarded several times internationally and nationally, and the results of international wine research institutes have confirmed the high expectations placed on DIAM.
The main benefits of this innovation will be:
- perfect cleaning by super-critical CO2 and therefore environmentally friendly and clean
- no glue, no plasticizers
- highest-quality binding material
- high elasticity, best tightness
- no more dust risk
- normal processing – it “pops” when opening
- easy uncorking and easy re-closing
- no early ageing – the wines remain fresh, pure-to-tone and perfectly stockable
- no losses due to cork taste
Z-Cork, Lda
Z-Cork has been showing for more than 30 years that it places the highest standards on the quality and quality of its cork. Joao Pedro the head of the company is aware of the exceptionally important task of his cork, that there is direct contact between the natural product cork and the noble bottle contents, the wine or sparkling wine. Z-Cork is committed to this, this commitment, and every day works hard to accomplish these tasks through a top end product: where top tochnology is combined with traditional and extensive 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 on our products. Every year we promise to ensure the highest possible quality with a handshake. The corks I get from Z-Cork are sorted by hand, but the cork oaks of Joao Pedro and his father are selected to the best of their knowledge and with many years of experience and trained eye. Cleanliness and perfetionism in production combined with agricultural and craftsmanship knowledge. I am very happy to have found such a great partner company in this important product for the preservation of wine quality.
