Mulching

Everything is growing and thriving - the vines and also the greencover.
Before the greenery can encroach upon the clusters and make it more
difficult for the leaves and the grapes to dry, we are mulching.
This we do in the lane between the vine rows with a front-mounted
attachment,
while we mulch between the stakes in the vine row itself by means of a
stern-mounted implement with two swivel arms.
And we reach a top speed of about 1.35 miles per hour.

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Flowering

Our Blaufränkisch vines are fully in blossom.
The shoots are – repeatedly – inserted into the wires, and individual leaves
are removed in order to accustom the clusters to the sunlight.

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Cultivating the Soil

In order to conserve water and allow the vine to benefit from all possible
nourishment, every other row in this quartz-gravel soil of the Ried
Steinmühle is cultivated with a disc harrow or rotary-harrow.
The alternating rows are kept green with a clover mix and mulched; this way,
the living organisms in the soil are fed with an organic mixture.

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Thinning out the shoots

Our Sauvignon Blanc in the Ried Steinmühle is growing twice as many shoots
as it should...

This would cause the leaf canopy to become too thick, with all of the
attendant negative factors like shadow-casting, greater danger of fungal
infection, and unnecessary consumption of nutrients.

So we are now removing the small shoots and those that bear little clusters.
This work requires a practised hand and a great deal of time.

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Caring for the young vines

We replanted over one thousand vines this year.
In order for them to thrive and grow properly, they need all of the water,
nutrients and sunshine that they can get.
We expose them more fully to the light, and carefully place protective mesh
screening around them, which prevents the deer and the hares from feeding on
the infant vines.

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Topping-up

While it was pouring rain outside, we worked in our cellar and topped up the casks.

In this process, the volume of wine that falls prey to natural evaporation is replaced and the barrel is once more refilled to the brim.

 

For every 225-litre barrique in every vintage, this amounts to some 5–10 litres of wine. Or in other words, every time we top up the casks,

it consumes the equivalent of one barrique of wine.

 

We use a 50-litre vessel of stainless steel, and out of this, propelled by a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, the wine passes through a hose and a spigot into the cask,

after which the bung is tightly replaced once more.

 

Tasting

Prior to being arranged and put into order, the individual wines were
meticulously tasted.
Colour, aroma, flavour, overall impression and finish are painstakingly
evaluated, before we swing into action in the cellar.
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