Winter's coming and the season is about to begin;
the wines need to be on their way to the restaurateurs—
so now the labels go on the bottles...
Weingut Kollwentz
Römerhof GmbH
Hauptstraße 120
A - 7051 Großhöflein
Tel. +43 2682 65158
Fax +43 2682 65158 13
Our red wines are drained from the fermentation tanks, and led through a long system of hoses down into the cellar. Protective airlocks in the casks—keeping it clean! The grape-mash is run through the press; this press-wine will be treated separately. And tomorrow is the big wash-day in the Kollwentz winery!
Weingut Kollwentz
we've got the best possible weather for picking our Chardonnay grapes, here in the highest-elevation vineyard on the Leithebirge, the Gloria.
there will be less Tatschler Chardonnay this year: the wild pigs have devoured 20% of the grapes. Up in Ried Gloria they've thus far —thankfully — still been hunting for grubs.
— but the birds of the forest like the flavour of grapes as well, and have been helping themselves...
The two tanks in the middle between the barrels—we call them 'companion tanks'
If you didn't see the corresponding installment of 'What's new?,' here's the explanation:
If a horse spent too much time by itself in the stall, it would quite often develop behavioural problems. But if you were to put another creature in the stall with it—even if it were a goat—these temperamental difficulties did not occur. So the expression arose, 'companion goat.'
Our barrels are filled with must before the onset of fermentation. During fermentation, carbon dioxide is produced, and this would cause the barrels to overflow—for this reason we put a couple little tanks next to them, into which we divert a portion of the must during the most violent phase of the fermentation. Afterwards the must can very gently—that means with least motion and distance involved—be replaced in the barrels. So that's why we call them companion tanks.
Things do indeed happen fast. A new generation of winegrowers — Hannes Reeh, Michael Kirchknopf and Rudi Wagentristl — took the prizes in the categories ‘Chardonnay Classic,’ ‘Weissburgunder,’ and ‘Leithaberg.’ At 43 years of age, one is already an ‘old master’ — and comes in ahead by a nose in the categories ‘Chardonnay Vins de Garde’ and ‘Reserve’ with Tatschler ’10 and Gloria ’07.
