[Back]

2006 vintage report - Global Warming affects vintage

Never before has the Max Ferd. Richter Estate experienced such a brief vintage: within twenty days all the vineyards had been completely cleared of grapes, while every available pair of hands was required to meet the challenge of noble rot.

Vegetation started hesitantly in April but accelerated in May as the weather became warm and wet. There was yet another early and perfect flowering as June turned out to be dry and 5 °C warmer than usual. July was glorious with the temperature above 25 °C (77F) on every days. We were desperate for rain and it came on 1st August and continued for the whole month, to make it the wettest and coolest August for twenty years. Nature reacted as if it was a second spring and the vegetation seemed to start to grow again, causing the perfect grapes to expand until they were almost bursting with juice. We carried out a second green vintage and began leaf plucking to allow the fresh breezes to circulate around the grape bunches.

Sunny, dry and warm days in September allowed the grapes to continue steadily to ripen, though the nights were unusually warm, which caused the development of the acids to be slightly retarded. The first weekend in October brought huge downpours of rain, which caused most of the grapes, made fragile by advanced ripening, to burst, allowing botrytis to spread to an extent that we have not seen since the 1967 vintage. Noble rot was everywhere and Oechsle weights shot up like a rocket. The grapes dried out and you could see your crop shrinking each day. We started the Riesling harvest on 5th October but our Polish picking team did not arrive until the 9th (Germany bureaucracy requires two months prior notice for foreign workers to be allowed to start work and who, in July, can forecast the exact date for picking?). Usually we make three passes though the vineyards but this time we picked everything in one great rush.

Results of the 2006 vintage: quantity was small, less than in 2005 and 2003: sugar levels (Oechsle degrees) reached new highs - the average must weight was 100 Oechsle (24 Brix) in 2003, 105 (25 Brix) in 2005 and 110 (26 Brix) in 2006 - the minimum legal level for a Beerenauslese, though most estates in the Mosel would describe it and sell it as a gold cap Auslese. The acidity had the ripeness that will give harmony and longevity. As with other vintages, we shall have to downgrade heavily to enable us to offer a balanced range from Qba up to all levels of Prädikat wines. As in 2005, we have not left any grapes on the vines for Eiswein. In spite of necessary modest price increases in recent years, the present quality level allows our customers to buy wines with a much higher taste intensity than a couple of years ago. Thanks to Global Warming!?

This rise in quality goes hand in hand with increased worldwide demand for Riesling. Indeed, we are unable to satisfy all our customers' wishes. This seems like a happy problem but we do risk loosing market shares. In order to minimise the gap between supply and demand, we bought in 2006 more excellent vines in Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Graacher Himmelreich and Mülheimer Sonnenlay. We shall therefore allocate the 2006 vintage to customers' current wishes, always, of course, subject to stocks remaining available.

Mülheim/Mosel, 30th November 2006

[Back]