A wine year full of character as in the past!

The 2021 vintage brought back old memories to winemakers. Some colleagues compared this year to vintages from the 1980s and early 1990s. „A year like old times!“ – a statement that was heard more often. After a rather mild winter in 2020/2021, the cold of February surprised us with a little snow. Temperatures increased only slowly the following weeks, so that the budbreak was rather around the long-term average, that is later than in the past five years. May also remained cool, therefore flowering started only in Mid-June.

A summer (almost) without sun

The months of summer were characterized by recurring and even sometimes heavy rainfall, and the weather remained cool and changeable on the whole, except at certain times. The rhythm and implementation of plant protection were a huge challenge and required a lot from our wine producers team. The month of August, which was particularly cold and humid, allowed the first grapes to soften up late, until they went „into wine“ around the middle of the month, as we call it here in Mosel. Unfortunately, the lack of sun and warmth early dashed our hopes to get ripe and red grapes.

In 2021, our plots showed unusually large differences. But it is mainly the Great Sites, oriented to the South and Southwest, that were able to catch the rare rays of the sun, and therefore showed their strength so highly praised. Here are located the best wines of the vintage. These vintages were also rich in extracts due to the presence of sufficient water last year. Combined with a completely firm acidity and beautiful ripe fruit, all of this together give a nice result for great Rieslings with amazing ageing potential.

In the month of September, the weather was good, warm, dry and sunny. That is the way we were able to harvest optimal and ripe Riesling grapes from the second week of October. In the last days of October, just before the weather changes, nature still granted us wonderful wines. Our harvest started from September 13th with early Burgundy and lasted until November 5th. It has been a very long time since we have brought home such late harvests. At this time, the wines seem to be extremely promising: creamy and fruity white Pinot and rosé wines will delight you as much as we do. The 2021 Rieslings have a particularly high quality: racy, mineral, with beautiful length and fullness. – Mosel, Saar and Ruwer „at their best“!