2NATURKINDER
Michael & Melanie Voelker
Germany, Franconia, Kitzengen
Michael & Melanie Voelker suffered monumental losses to their crop when frost hit on the night of May 15th. Usually operating at yields of 35 hectolitres per hectare, this year Michael considers himself lucky to even have 15 hl/ha. The once-a-decade frost event means the 2020 releases from Kitzingen will be scarce. Nevertheless we have just received a brace of new wines from the Voelkers including two new cuvees, cause for celebration in the face of upcoming adversity.
We spoke to Michael in late October to discuss the new wines, and were surprised to find harvest was not quite finished:
Good afternoon Michael, how are you going?
I’m alright, it’s calming down slowly. It’s actually our last pick tomorrow. We’re picking second generation Riesling. The frost wiped out the first generation buds; but they do have a second generation - sometimes a third - as a backup. Normally we would have picked this vineyard in late September! The backup-buds broke after the night of frost, and some produced a serious amount of grapes. The Heimat Silvaner will just be enough for one barrique, the Pinots will be at least a few hundred litres. It will be interesting to see how these ferments go...
One more day, the end is in sight! Could you tell us about the two new wines we’ll be receiving this week?
2018 Weinschwärmer
It's a blend of two wines. The two varieties share one special vineyard: on Eselsberg, the hill where the Heimat Silvaner and the Fledermaus grow, there is a hectare with two thirds Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) and one third Riesling. That was my Dad’s favourite vineyard, and was the last one that we were still making wine for his portfolio with, before he retired. I didn’t want to take this one off him until he was ready.
The two varieties ripen at different times, so we don’t pick them together. We fermented them separately. The Pinot Gris is skin fermented for 10 days, the Riesling is a direct press, to bring that razor sharp acidity. I've played with those two for a couple of years, trying to find the right blend; this was the blend Melanie approved of. It’s dedicated to the Weinschwärmer: the brightly coloured moths that live in the area; a delicacy for our bats!
2019 Vater & Sohn
Believe it or not it took me half a year to find the right blend for this one. This is a blend from 12 initial wines - I left a couple out that didn’t work well with the wine in the end- we have about 10 here. I get the wines on the table, try to find the best possible mix. From 10 wines; if you make a mix of 5 different ratios, you need to wait a week really until you can judge the result properly, the wines have to react to one another. Melanie will have a smell - shake her head- so then: we try the next version next weekend! For half a year until we find the right one!
Fortunately or not, that’s not a problem we’ll have this year, with such little wine everything has to work out. But, everything has worked out so far, given the small quantities. If we had this x3, 2020 would have been a breathtaking vintage.
So the frost was as bad as I’ve heard?
I was glad I got anything at all. One of the guys I regularly get grapes from was also completely destroyed too. Thankfully there’s a third guy who I infrequently get a small batch from, he co-runs Demeter in this region, teaches organic farming. I’ve helped him out with sheep in the past. As he’s a teacher he doesn’t need all of his grapes so I was able to have 10 of his vineyards to pick this year. That kind of saved our ass, otherwise it would’ve just been a few thousand litres which is… not enough.
My Dad was saying I have to expect a frost like this every 10 years, though it's certainly getting more dangerous with the vegetation season starting earlier and earlier with climate change- which is a clear pattern. If you have an earlier bud break then the period of time between bud break and the last night of frost that you can expect- mid May - that period gets longer and longer. And that makes it just more likely that you get an event of frost hitting the plants. So it won't have been the last time, but I'd be quite happy if it was the last time for the next couple of years. I'm happy to just deal with the drought for a while, because that's not going to go away, not in our lifetime.
That’s becoming a frequent occurrence?
It was the 3rd year of drought in a row. We’re getting used to it, that's our job as farmers- to adapt to that. 2018 was the first Europe-wide drought that we had, with quite a few producers having fermentation problems for the first time in their lives. Because we had a fairly humid - great, vegetation wise - Spring in 2018, we had a lot of fruit on the grapevines. Everybody was like “Yay, jackpot!” And then it just stopped raining. The result was that there was not enough nitrogen available for the plants, because when the soil is dry, roots don’t have the water they need to transport stuff. Ions won't move in a completely dry environment.
So then we ended up having not enough amino acids in some of the juice and that leads to fermentation problems. In 2019 we adapted to that. I just reduced the yields when I noticed it was going in a similar direction. And that worked out certainly, but this year there was so little left on the vines (after the frost) that for us it didn’t really make a difference: if you only have two bunches per plant, whatever water you get is gonna be enough.
Beyond the up-front losses; has 2020 put paid to any future plans for the time being?
The vineyard that used to produce Black Betty, we call our garden vineyard - we have a garden at the bottom that’s become a bit of a biotope- I’ve pulled up the Domina in 2017 and planted a traditional mix of about 20 varieties. Everything was a co-plantation back in the past; that was an insurance for the producer, if one variety didn't perform well one year, then maybe the others would. But every region has a unique composition of varieties. I planted the composition that is supposed to have been the typical one in this area. It was supposed to give us grapes for the first time this year but the frost saw to that. We went through though, picked two buckets. Literally. Every grape counts!
I planted another hectare this year, about half of the plot is planted with a mix of six different hybrids, so it’s supposed to become a field blend. The other half is now home to an once thought extinct member of the Pinot family. It ripens two weeks after Pinot Noir, with smaller berries and thicker skins. The German name is “Fränkischer Burgunder”. That plot and the garden vineyard will both take another four or five years before being bottled as a single vineyard expression.
NOW IN STOCK
WHITE
2019 - Vater & Sohn - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Bacchus
Bottled in August 2020.
2018 - Weinschwärmer - Pinot Gris, Riesling
The two batches were blended in April 2019 into two barrels and were bottled as Weinschwärmer in March 2020.
SKIN MACERATED
2017 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner
40-year old Silvaner vineyard, grown on the steepest point of the hill on meager Keuper soil. Loads of sun, hard to farm. 2/3 of the grapes were fermented on the skins for a week, the rest was pressed after two nights of skin-contact. Aging in 60-year old oak. The wines came together in summer 2019 and remained in a tank until bottling in March 2020.
2016 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner
In ‘16, about 50% of the grapes were fermented on the skins for ten days the rest was pressed after a night of skin-contact. Aged in 60-year old oak, the wines were blended in spring 2018,bottled in July 2018.
2018 Heimat Silvaner - Silvaner
35 year old vines, farmed organically for more than 20 years.
The destemmed grapes always ferment quickly. After pressing the wine went into a 600l barrel, a barrique and a tank before it got racked & blended into a relatively new 1200l barrel in summer 2019 (so it comes with a gentle kiss from Franconian oak).
RED
2018 - Spätburgunder - Pinot Noir
After two trickier vintages 2018 was very satisfying. Fantastic grapes and a higher quantity than the years before. Racked and blended into a bigger barrel in summer 2019 before being bottled in March 2020.
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