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Who would have expected a vintage of this quality level after such a summer?!
Due to optimal growing conditions in May and June we had a regular, quite early start of the vegetation year.
The blossom of the vines proceeded perfectly with good fruit development, thanks to the dry weather during that period. After blossom then we had a lot of rain which was very welcome after the dry year of 2003.
End of the month of July we got more heavy rainfalls and even some hail in Piesport. The month of August was humid too.
The grapes stayed very healthy though, most probably as they needed humidity to balance out the lack of water from the previous year.
Outstanding weather in the months of September and October, partly with mediterranean temperatures and very healthy grapes enabled us to wait with the harvest till the end of the month of October.
The ripeness levels (up from 80-100° Oechsle) and the spicy, fruity aromas of the grapes are amazingly high.
We are happy to have harvested a very healthy and ripe vintage with fine minerals and a lively acidity.
Riesling wines that support the character of our region with high extracts and a good development of aroma – certainly a vintage with large ageing potential.
The vintage 2004 has surpassed all our expectations.
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After a wet period around New Year we had a quite dry and warm winter in 2003.
Throughout the vegetation year it was warmer and drier than average until the end of September.
The flowering on Moselle, Saar and Ruwer was perfect and due to the warm and dry weather conditions the vines grew extremely fast so that we had intense vineyard work during May and June. By end of June the vegetation was about 3 weeks ahead.
In July growth slowed down due to the lack of rain. The first ?rumour? came up that this vintage might compare with years like 1947, 1959 or 1976.
When the temperatures went up to 40°C (110° F) in August we started to have the first sunburns, in particular in steeper, southern exposed vineyard slopes, which means in our very best sites. Damages ranged between 10-30%.
We were happy to have thunderstorms (without hail) during the time of August. Those mainly came down on the Moselle, less on the Saar and Ruwer.
The extreme heat ceased by mid August so that the grapes ripened quickly. By September the sugar levels were higher than in any other vintage before.
Heavier rain fall end of September caused a slow development of Botrytis, in particular on the Saar. Generally spoken the ripeness levels are the highest on the Moselle, in particular in the Josephshof, which has fine, heavier slate soils.
On the Saar the drought caused stress and the Oechsle degrees were slightly lower.
Older vines showed no stress of drought at all this year and produced the best wines. Prove that the best wines come from older vineyards.
By the 6th of October we decided to start picking. We were optimistic to pick one of the best vintages of this century. The grapes looked beautiful; very healthy and ripe with fruit aromas that we have not met in the last 30 years.
The acidities are ripe with a high percentage of tartaric acidity. The entire harvest could be considered Auslese and higher according to the law. We will produce Kabinett and Spätlese wines of the healthy (no botrytis) grapes and offer very small quantities of Auslese as there was little noble rot.
The Trockenbeerenauslese are the best we have ever had since harvest-records exist at the estate.
Up to 300 Oechsle were hand-selected in the famous vineyards of Josephshöfer, our monopole site, Scharzhofberger and Piesporter Goldtröpfchen.
The yields were very low. Obviously the sunburn and the dry weather caused a considerable deduction.
We will leave the wines after fermentation longer on the fine leas in order to guarantee longevity.
Time will tell if we have harvested one of the greatest vintages of the century!
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After a long cold period in winter the vegetation year of the 2002 vintage started perfectly.
Due to sufficient watersupply and a lot of sunshine the growth of the shoots proceeded fast. Nature was two weeks in advance by June.
The blossoming went very well and the summer had perfect weather conditions, no stress for the plant, as the balance of rain and sunshine was perfect again - to put it short the way we love it.
Reducing yields in the top sites and careful handling of the vineyards did add to excellent suppositions for a great year.
When we started harvesting on the 21st October the grapes were healthier than we have seen in years, golden yellow in color, ripe up to 90 degrees of Oechsle and tasty.
With the harvest we did get rain, which certainly reduced the spectaculous millenium vintage we expected, but selective picking of the best healthy grapes throughout the harvest and the excellent suppositions the grapes had prior to harvest rewarded us with a very very good vintage.
The end of the picking was tropped on 11th December with two Eisweins in Scharzhofberger with 165! Oe (290 ltr.) and in Kaseler Nies?chen with 160° Oe (300 ltrs).
1990 could be compared with it. Great transparent fruit, racy acidities, good ripeness and extract.
Come and taste yourself!!!!!!
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The flowering on Mosel, Saar and Ruwer was perfect and finished within two weeks, so that all grapes were equally fertilised. After this very good bud burst we had a wonderful summer with the perfect balance of sunshine and rain.
In September it started to rain heavily and the temperatures dropped to 15 °C/60 F.
We feared already that the advantages for the vines might be lost. The so-called ?golden October? helped us to harvest one of the very best vintages for the past 30 years. Actually we have not had such a warm October since hundred years.
We started with the main harvest in our top vineyard sites only on the 29th of October. We were rewarded with golden ripe grapes up to Beerenauslese.
Eiswein was harvested on Saturday 15th December after several very frosty days on the Ruwer in Kaseler Nies?chen with 125° Oechsle and on the Saar in Scharzhofberger with 130° Oechsle.
The ripening time between blossoming and harvest was 150 days - a very long period (most wine areas 90 days) - which rewarded us with the most wonderful fruit aromas and very high extracts.
The 2001 vintage is beautifully balanced with expressive exotic aromas of passion-fruit, peach and blackcurrant combined with a lively ripe acidity.
We had Botrytis in the Auslese and Beerenauslese wines and yellow very ripe, healthy grapes for all our other Rieslings.
This vintage belongs to one of the very best since the past 30 years.
We compare it with the vintage 1990 or even with 1975 - both vintages were "Riesling-legends".
We are very happy and proud!
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The vegetation period on Moselle, Saar and Ruwer started 3 to 4 weeks earlier as usual and the time between bud burst and flowering reduced itself in all three valleys to a minimum of 3 weeks. The flowering started already end of May and proceeded quick and uninterrupted with a very good setting.
This lead of the vegetation period continued until middle/end of June. Therefore we had to cut the leaves twice this year which never happened before in the history of our estate.
Heavy rainfalls almost throughout the whole period of July continuously reduced the lead of the vegetation. Due to rainfall the grapes grew bigger and it enhanced mildew. By August the lead of vegetation was completely used up.
We brought the grapes healthy into October as we had adapted to the weather conditions in summertime and shortened the spraying intervals against mildew and Botrytis.
On the 10th of October we started the very selective and labour intensive picking. Due to rain we had to interrupt the harvest many times in order to get dry grapes. We also got the best out of each vineyard as we picked very selectively – often we went up to 4 times into our top sites. Due to the healthy conditions of the grapes, especially on the Moselle we could give the grapes plenty of time to get maximum ripeness so that by November 20th we finished with more than one third of Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese.
The beautiful fruit, transparency and elegance of 2000 awards us for all the efforts an make us in proud.
Due to very selective picking we even harvested Trockenbeerenauslese in our famous vineyard ?Scharzhofberger?.
On the 22nd of December we were pleased with Eiswein 145° Oechsle in the Scharzhofberger (picked at –8° C) and in the Kaseler Nies?chen with 155° Oechsle (at – 10° C).
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60 hl/ha Saar and ruwer
80 hl/ha Mosel
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The flowering was perfect in the Mosel-, Saar- and Ruwer-valley, so that there were higher yields to be expected. The weather in summer was extremely hot, so that the grapes were under stress because of drought. It was feared then that the grapes would stay extremely small and not develop enough sugar when we got warm weather in September which led to growth of the grapes and a high ripeness level with Botrytis starting to develop already beginning of October.
The Mosel has quite high yields because of earlier huminity and rain in that region and less high Oechsle degrees, but racy adidities. The Saar and Ruwer region has not had such high Oechsle degrees since 1989, some even compare it with 1959. The 1999 vintage is very complex, rich and ripe in character with hardly no wines below 90° Oechsle.
Beerenauslese and Eiswein could be harvested, in particular on Saar and Ruwer.
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In spring the bud burst was very good and regular. However the progress of the blossoming was already quite different among Mosel, Saar and Ruwer. Saar and Ruwer showed a very good blossoming, but on the Mosel it was already quite irregular.
The summer, with its long dry periods had the biggest influence on the harvest. On the skeleton-rich and dry soils of the middle Mosel it ripened very well, but the berries stayed extremely small. On Saar and Ruwer the water supply was much better, so that the grapes became bigger.
Early in autumn we got a lot of rain and had to wait before we started harvesting till the 22nd of October in order to get higher ripeness levels. We harvested extremely selective and cost-intensive, as we picked only during the few dry periods. In all vineyards where we had done the "green harvest" and pruned very little (our top sites), we harvested dense Kabinett and good Spätlese wines, which of course will be short in supply in 1998.
We were very happy though, that we could harvest excellent Eisweins on the 21st of November in Piesport, Kasel and in the Scharzhof with Oechsle degrees between 130 and 180°. It might be the best Eiswein since the last 20 years. |
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53 hl/ha
(80 hl/ha in the Mosel valley, 42 hl/ha in Saar and Ruwer valley)
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In April, at budbreak it looked promising but the late frost in May destroyed up to 70% of the young shoots, especially in the vineyards of the Saar and Ruwer valley.
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The flowering was perfect in the Mosel valley but the other areas had periods of bad weather washing out some of the flowering, reducing the yield again. The weather in the fall was excellent and led to a high ripeness level, and the healthiness of the crop allowed us to pick fairly late to prolong the ripening time on the vines.
Even though the yield was very low, the high quality made up for it and the wines promise to develop an intense fruit aroma. The vintage might be comparable to the good 1975 vintage. |
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The vintage 1996 will be considered in wine history as one of the vintages with the lowest yields. At the Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt estate we cannot think of any year which had such low yields per hectare. Exceptional is also the late beginning of the harvest, as we normally start beginning or mid of October.
The low yields are due to the long lasting drought in winter and throughout the whole vegetation year. The blossoming was irregular.
The grapes at harvest time were very healthy, with little botrytis and the first tastings show that we will get a very minerally influenced Riesling wine with wonderful bouquets. Our wine maker compares them with the 1990 vintage, although we did not harvest as much Auslese as we did in 1990.
Due to the small harvest in 96 and also in 95 price increases have to be expected. |
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late blossomshot, dry summerrainy autumn, but beautiful weather up from October 8th till the end of the harvest
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The rain and humidity in autumn caused on Mosel, Saar and Ruwer much fewer problems than on the other growing areas, which is mainly due to the light slate soils where the moisture and water is less dammed up.
The 1995 vintage is quantitative by far the smallest vintage we had in the 10 recent years.
According to our harvest book the predicate-wines total up to 63 %, although the qualities differ among Mosel, Saar and Ruwer. The quality-level of our Kabinett and Spätlese wines will be excellent.
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We have harvested Eiswein in the following sites:
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Waldracher Heiligenhäuschen
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We are very satisfied with the result of the harvest.
The 1995 vintage is characterized by considerable differences among the German wine growing areas and the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer area might be the very best among them. |
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A turbulent year - after an optimal early growth in spring the blossoming did not proceed the same everywhere. In the sites of the middle Mosel we had less fruit development, on Saar and Ruwer the blossoming was good.
The 1994 vintage was influenced tremendously by the long lasting dry and hot period in summer. Due to this weather the grapes stayed small and give very little most. The strong sunshine caused however very good aromas and high extracts.
There are little differences among Mosel, Saar and Ruwer in regard of ripeness and acidity. In all three regions we harvested a lot of Spätlese and Auslese wines and very few Qualitätswein and Kabinett.
We have not had such high Oechsle degrees since 1959. The peak is a Trockenbeerenauslese in the Scharzhofberger with 201° Oechsle and Piesporter Goldtröpfchen with 175° Oechsle. |
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A lot of different speculations about the quality of the 1993 vintage have been made prior to the harvest. Some said that it would be average, others said spectacular. The truth is somewhere in the middle and the quality in general is quite different depending on the grower.
The vegetation/growth of the 1993 vintage started early and proceeded regular and quick with much less bud-developments than 1992, which also caused a smaller harvest of course.
Till mid of September the vegetation and ripening-process was perfect and everybody talked about a fabulous vintage. Then the cool and wet weather period came and we worried about the vintage, forgetting that the ripeness advantage was big.
Beginning of October botrytis started to affect the grapes, which caused another deduction of the harvest, but helped a lot quality-wise. Today, after having finished harvesting (apart from the Eiswein) we can say that 1993 is a vintage far above average with very aromatic wines and a fruity, lively acidity. Auslese and Beerenauslese have a wonderful botrytis-touch. We harvested wines from Qualitätswein to Beerenauslese and do hope to be able to harvest some Eiswein.
The style of the wine compares maybe a bit with 1989 and 1990, having some of the botrytis of 1989, but also the fruit of the 1990s and the similar quality levels and extracts as the 1990. It is certainly superior to the 1991 vintage and slightly superior to the 1992 vintage. |
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The year 1992 is a most interesting vintage, as we could harvest grapes from all quality levels, with very good results in all categories.
The good ripening of the wood in 1991 was decisive for a very good and regular growing of the buds, which started already very early due to the most favorable weather. The growing of the berries was very satisfying and due to a quality-orientated first pruning there was no over-charge of the vine.
The favorable development of the weather in summer and early autumn caused an important advantage in the ripening of the berries from which could be concluded that the grapes would develop an excellent bouquet.
The degree of maturity was not as high as expected, but we harvested grapes which will produce wines of each quality. The autumn was characterized by an unstable weather period; the harvest had to be interrupted several times because of heavy rainfalls, and we harvested very selectively. In any case, the pruning was worth while, as it led to an important increase in quality.
During the first tastings of the young wines we found a fine, elegant grape bouquet with a hearty, yet mature acidity. The wines are very expressive and there are clear differences between the individual regions (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer). It will certainly be difficult to compare the 1992 vintage with previous vintages. The quality differences between the individual sites are particularly clear. |
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The 1991 vintage belongs to the most difficult vintages in viticulture of the last decade. The frost in spring, especially on Saar and Ruwer, caused considerable damage. The drought from July until September slowed down the development of the sugar in the grape. The results of the harvest in quantity and quality are very different from vineyard to vineyard.
The 1991 can be considered a good vintage, although it does not reach the excellent and outstanding quality of 1989 and 1990. The 1991s have a beautiful aroma and fruit. They are elegant light wines that meet the demand of Qualitätswein and Kabinett, that we were short in supply with in the past two years. |