A difficult vintage

The 2010 vintage will certainly remain as a memorial to the extremely high year-round rainfall and hail in the area Jur – Pezinok. Humidity caused serious problems in the systematic tending to the vineyards, yet we managed to keep the old Portugieser vineyard healthy until late August, but at the end the powdery mildew appeared. Yield per hectare was significantly lower due to the necessity to sort-out the damaged grapes at harvest. Grapes reached the sugar content of 21 NM, but the lack of sunshine and relatively low temperatures resulted in a relatively high content of total acids including the harsh malic acid. The new Blaufränkisch vineyard, planted in 2007, gave us the so called virgin harvest. The grapes were quite healthy, but we feared the weather, disease pressure and starlings, so we picked the grapes already mid-October. Consequently, the grapes were not fully matured, had relatively high acidity and sugar content of only 19.50 NM.
Wines from this cold and rainy vintage were characterized by elevated acidity, however, they quite improved after three years in the bottle and when they have been at their best they were gone…