– Vintage 2005 –

2005 particularly repaid the constant work in the vineyard and stringent reduction of the yields. Our team of pickers—year-in year-out the same well-trained troupe—had their work cut out for them. Because of the downpour three weeks before the start of the harvest, the grapes had to be harvested with the greatest of care, after which we made an additional selection on the sorting-belt in our press house.

All told, the yield fell between 30% and 40% lower than our customarily modest figure of 40 hectolitres per hectare. But from the beginning of the harvest, the weather showed its loveliest side—there was not a single rainy day until all the grapes were in the house!

Those few bunches which remained on the vine ripened wonderfully and yielded a small harvest with very fine white wines, and an equally reduced quantity of lovely spicy reds; we were even able to pick two Beerenauslesen and one Trockenbeerenauslese!