Herbstberichte
Herbstbericht 2011
Vintage 2011 at Weingut Selbach-Oster
2011 was marked by rather unusual weather, making the 2011 growing season one of the warmest, if not the warmest, of the last four decades and the driest of the last 50 years.
Spring started early, in early March. The mild March yielded to a very warm in April, the temperatures then turned hot in May. Consequently, bud break and flowering occurred very early, between two and three weeks earlier than the long term median.
A couple of cold nights in the first week of May, which caused considerable frost damage in many German wine regions, especially further south, did not affect us. The unique microcli-mate in the narrow Mosel valley, vineyards protected by the wooded hillsides from cold winds and by the tempering influence of the large water body of the river, provided excellent protection. The serious damages the May frost caused further south and in the open plains, showed in an impressive way, how reliable the microclimate in the heartland of the ”Mittel-mosel” (heart of the Mosel ) has been for the steep slope viticulture along the river.
The warm, respectively hot weather created a drought problem in May which was relieved by a huge thunderstorm on 6th June, which brought a massive downpour of rain and a sprinkling of hail (no serious damage to the vines). June was nice and warm, the first half of July also. Then the weather turned cooler and the mix of cool and moderately warm days lasted through the middle of August, causing many vacationers to speak about a "bad summer”.
The heat returned in the second half of August, enabling the vines to keep their two-week advantage over the previous years. Sadly, in the afternoon of Friday, August 26th, a huge thunderstorm, which moved from the town of Veldenz over Brauneberg, Lieser, Kues, Graach, Wehlen, Zeltingen, Kinheim and Kröv, dumped hail of massive dimensions on those villages and their vineyards, creating havoc on cars, houses and certainly also plants. (On Youtube, go to "Hagel Zeltingen” to get an impression of the hailstorm).
The vineyards were hard hit though the impact varied greatly even within a hundred meters, depending on how the slopes twist and turn. The most exposed vineyards took the worst beat-ing and the damage in such parcels amounted to 50% whilst more protected portions of the slopes escaped with only 20% damage. The massive rainfall which followed the hailstorm proved beneficial since the rainwater washed the juice/sugar out of the damaged berries, min-imizing the risk of rot in the bunches that were hit by hail.
The ensuing weather was dry and sunny, a saving grace for the remaining crop.
September produced summer-like weather, which turned to hot weather at the end of the month. Temperatures during the day swung between 25 and 30° C for a period of almost two weeks between September 25th and October 8th, accelerating the ripening process. This made us begin our harvest a week earlier than planned. We started our first picking run on the 27th of September with a "negative” selection in the Himmelreich vineyards behind the village, taking out imperfect (hail stricken) grapes and damaged leaves. After five days of such specif-ic, selective picking, we harvest our Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), in beautiful, ripe and healthy condition, then continued with our "regular” Riesling harvest.
The flavours and sugar-acid combinations were exciting and confirmed it was the right deci-sion to start harvesting early. The sugar, measured in degrees "Oechsle” varied between 81°
for the least ripe and 119° for the ripest of the "regular” pickings, which means the ripeness spectrum stretched from Kabinett to a "little” Beerenauslese.
The hot and dry weather did not favour the spreading of botrytis but little there was, the dry conditions made the berries shrivel into perfectly "clean”, honeyed raisins and we started to collect those consciously to make Trockenbeerenauslese.
Because of the high degree of dehydration, the TBA yields are very small, the concentration massive. It took us a while to get fermentations started and if we manage to get this thick juice fermented into wine, they will become the biggest TBA in the history of Selbach-Oster.
Starting with greenish yellow fruit at healthy acidity levels (around 9 grams/litre) in late Sep-tember, the hot days and relatively warm nights caused an ongoing reduction of the acidity to the point we were picking succulent golden grapes with copper "cheeks” and tiny freckles, highly aromatic, but with acidity levels hovering around 7 g/l - and then dropping below 7g/l.
Based on the ripe, healthy quality of the fruit, 2011 enabled us to make equally good "sweet” wines and dry wines. The sugar levels were indeed high but not over the top and the first tast-ings promise ripe but elegant wines.
The 2011s are not at all like the big wines from 2003 but certainly much more supple and round than the sleek and vibrant ‘10s with their "electrifying” sweet-acid tension that made 2010 unique in its own, special way.
In other words, 2011 is a near perfect vintage with very good, ripe fruit, covering the spec-trum from Kabinett up to TBA. So far, we had almost no problems with fermentations (though we still have a number of barrels "in labour").
Our 2011 yields are O.K., smaller than we had hoped for, but we had done green harvest in a good number of our vineyards, not anticipating the kind of hail damage we eventually took. Ironically, we had just finished our "vendange verte” the day of the huge hailstorm! The hail damaged the foliage, also next year's bud wood, it took down some fruit plus damaged a por-tion of the fruit that was left hanging - but luckily it turned out to be less disastrous than it seemed right after the storm.
We finished our harvest; record early, on October 25th, aside from an acre and a half (roughly 4000 square meters) unpicked in the "Himmelreich”, where we hope to make Eiswein. So far, however, we have not had any frost and winter is nowhere in sight.
Business was very good in 2011 and we thank all our friends and customers for their ongoing support. We realize we have been blessed with the unique gift of a long, unbroken series of good, very good or excellent vintages since 1988, which has helped our ongoing efforts to handcraft pure, complex Rieslings with charm and personality from the fabulous, ancient slate slopes of the "Mittelmosel”, and we are grateful for the support from above, too.
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