SPEAKER_02 0:00

Ja, Mark, daar zitten we weer. Ja, en deze zaterdagochtend. Zondag. Zondagochtend. Zondagochtend 14 uur. En dan kun je natuurlijk de dag niet beter. We beginnen met een zonnetje. Mooi zon. En over wijn praten. En over wijn praten. En proeven. Nou, ik ben benieuwd. Waar zitten we dan?

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Op locatie. Niet bij Studio Erends. Niet bij Studens. We zitten hier alweer bij het schipskema. Schip in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam. Ik was het helemaal vergeten. Nee, maar dan zitten we hier dus. We zitten hier in Schipskemeel, Amsterdam. Die hebben we al eens een keer een podcast gemaakt. Met zekt, winst, hebben we hier gehad. Ja, klopt. Mow Moody. Ook mooi met Mo, met Sommer. En die is ook goed beluisterd al. En dus daar zijn we zeer tevreden. En we zitten hier vandaag wederom in de Schipskemeel, omdat hier een restaurant is met alleen maar Duitse wijnen. En we hebben namelijk een Duitse gast. Hij had een vloek genomen. Hij had heute morgen een vloek genomen van Bazel. Oh, Bazel?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Aber jetzt is het in English. It's always good that you don't see the faces in the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Yeah, but you took to a plane this morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Middle in the night.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Four thirty out of the house, yeah. Out of Malterdingen. Out of Maltertingen, out to Basel.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Up to Basel and then from Basel to Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

And now you're here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Who are you? Sorry? Who are you? I'm Julian Hooper. Ah, okay. Coming from Maltertingen and um uh very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Yeah, yeah, we have a very nice program today. We're starting up with uh podcast at 11 o'clock. And from 12 on we have a Wildenstein 14 14 years. 13 years starting with 2007, I think, and then we go to 2022. That was the first event. That is our first event ever. Okay. After a year is a good event, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And after that, we have a lunch with your wines. Yeah, it's so great. Thanks for this organization. Yeah, yeah, and thank you for being here. Of course, no, it's a pleasure, and even opening the bottles, the Wildenstein bottles in this vertical tasting. It's uh also for me uh a special, a special event.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Yes, you you told me that that you you didn't have so much years Wildenstein in one go.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, yeah, that's uh that's a great honor for me also to present the wines and also to see the vintages also of from my father.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Most most the most of the wines I have from the property. I bought it at you because I imported your wines from to year 2012, yeah, and I wasn't in the occasion to buy a few older years in those days, and I did that. So all the wines are coming directly actually from your domain into my cellar.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, that's that's great. I I'm very curious.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

I hope the bottles we had in the 2010 a few weeks ago, MS. A couple of months ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

And the 12th was all oh very good. Okay, Julian. Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Starting off with starting with Julian, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Tell us about you. Who are you? So yeah, um, I I'm Julian and I'm took over the winery uh in 2014 uh when my when my father passed by. Um, since then I'm running the winery together with my mother. Before that, I um did a very classical apprenticeship as a winemaker. So I went You went to Geisenheim. I went also to Geisenheim, but I did also the usual apprenticeship as you do for for about two years. So I worked in two different wineries. I worked in Württemberg in the Aldinger winery. Oh, Aldinger. Uh with Matthias Aldinger. And Matthias Aldinger did also his apprentice in our in our winery in 2001. So that was the exchange over there. Okay. It was a very interesting year for me. And the second year in 2010, I've been one year to Burgundy. Which domain? Uh it was the domain Dude Nodin. Oh, yeah, Dude Nodin. In Savigny-le Bonne. It's a very classical one. A very classical one, and uh yeah, Isabel took a lot of care. Um, and so it was very interesting for me to dive into the Burgundy um traditions also.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Yeah, yeah. And uh okay, maybe we talk about that or different techniques, etc. If of the is any difference between Burgundy and Baden. Well, you're located in Baden, huh?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, so um our winery is located in Malterdingen, which is just at the foothill zone area of the Black Forest. Yeah, so we are profiting very much from this very cool, um, cool winds falling down from the Black Forest area, and we are just on the opposite side from the Elsa's area. So in the Rhine River Valley. And so on the right hand side, on this side from the Elsas, you have the Wosh region covered by the um covered by the Walsh. So the weather usually rains down before the Walsh, not in the Elsas area, so before. And the Elsas is a very dry region. And we are just in the foothill zone of the Black Forest area where the rain usually falls down before uh in our area. So we are a little bit more humid, we are a little bit more cooler, so we profit more in the warm years than we usually do not struggle with with dryness or with too less water. Um, but we also struggle a little bit in the in the cooler years, which are a little bit more humid. Okay. We need to put more uh work in these vintages. Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Uh we will uh talk about vintages uh later on. But uh the the the monastery of you the actually it is not that old your winery, yeah. So my father and my mother founded the winery in 1987. Yeah, but but already in the very early years the monks started there.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah, so the history in Malta is quite old. Um uh seven hundred years ago there was a monastery very close to our winery. And uh of course, in this time the the monks they discovered the area and they brought also the wines to our place, and so there was a lot of um uh witiculture in our area, which is um of course a big history for us. And there was also a synonym called Maldadinger, which was known for very good Pinot Noir in this time, and that was always the dream from my father to to knock on this history, and maybe to to the biggest goal was always to produce a wine which you recommend as Maldadingen. Okay, and that in the old days was already Pinot Noir, you know that. So it's not 100%, but of course it they've been coming from Burgundy, and we are thinking so. Yeah, we are hoping so.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Yeah, they came from Burgundy, so it must be. Yeah, so they found uh more less more or less the same terroir as in Burgundy. Yeah, yeah. Which is limestone soils, weathered limestone soils in our area. Yeah, yeah, very good. In that time. Because the the first when I first came to your wineries, about uh 12 years ago or something, you also now you focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and a little bit of Weisburgunder, Pinot Blanc, and a little bit of Pinot Gris. But in those days you also had Müller Turgau or something, and Freisinger.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Freisamer, Freisamer. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Yeah, so the Teppich wine, the Teppich, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

That was the name. A very classical wine, yeah, which my which my father created with Freisamer and Pinot Blanc, yeah. Very interesting wine. But yeah, we in these days we had Muscatella, Müller, Thurgau, Oxroa, Weissverbunder, Pinot Gris, a little bit of Riesling also, yeah. And um, but my father always focused on Pinot Noir, so the main production was always Pinot Noir. So in this time, even it was about 60%. Meanwhile, we have about 70% of Pinot Noir, yeah, and 20% Chardonnay, and then we have a little bit of Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. And there is one field Müller Turgo, which is 0.3 hectare and 1.0 hectare of muscatella, which I need to produce for my mother, otherwise, I won't get the winery. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

She drinks it herself. She drinks it herself. What is your wine consumption? 1.0 is a hectare.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Only private. Last year it was about 400 bottles, but in the cabinet style. And yeah, those 400 bottles she can drink not by herself but with her friends. Yeah, yeah, I can understand.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

And a little bit for the workers, I suppose. For the staff. Yeah, a little bit to have an an imperative.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

We like also cabinets, so yeah, we love cabinets, but in the riesling style.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Yes. Local, gorgeous flavour, of course. Okay, of course. Okay, your father and your mother, Barbara, um you created, they started up, actually started up the the winery. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, so my uh the the base where our winery is located, um, meanwhile, was this base was founded by my grandparents in the 1950s. And in these days, it was a very mixed-up uh cultured um farm. So we had some agriculture, we had some fruits, we had some um also some some animals, some chickens, some some cows, yeah, and um of course also some vineyards. And when my father came home in the middle of the 80s, of course, he wanted to focus on the on the vineyards. And in the winery, there have been about eight hectares of vineyards, and he took out four hectares from the cooperative from my grandfather, okay, and produced them by himself and bottled them also by himself. My grandfather was founder also of the cooperative in my town. Okay, wow. And so this was a little struggle in the village. You can imagine if the son of the founder of the cooperative goes goes out.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

So in in a in a in a in a little village, in a little village, so not not everybody happy?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

No, a lot of people I say think they say, like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, so of course, at the at the beginning it was not an easy path for my uh for my father, but um he had uh he had a uh he had one vision and uh a great idea, and um he he just kept uh going on, and uh yeah at the end um he was he was it was a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

You're still here, but your your father had a big inspiration for Burgundy. Now he went often to Burgundy also.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, he had also a lot of friends in Burgundy, of course. And visit uh Burgundy for sure five, six times a year at least. It's just three hours' drive from us, so it's not far. And uh, of course, um all the history, the vinification, and everything was uh it was inspiring him a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

And and you you also go often to Burgundy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, as as we do, we drink a lot of burgundy, of course. Yeah, I saw that. Meanwhile, the village qualities, of course, the the cruise are getting a little bit too expensive for us, but of course it's it's amazing, it's an amazing region, and I'm a big big fan. I love the culture, I love uh I love the idea of um producing the terroir and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

But maybe it's nice to also hear for our listeners uh how did you start with wine? Because all you grew up with a winery from your father and grandparents, but how did you start with wine?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So I think the first time when I get in of course you grow up, you have to work in the winery as in as a f family business. There is no like a it's not like a calm Saturday where the friends go to the lake. My that's a you can go to the vineyard, and maybe later to the lake, that's okay. But first to work, of course. Yeah, so that was usual. And at at my 13th birthday, um he did a clever uh a clever treat. He uh for the um uh confirmation. Uh confirmation he he he um he gave me a small piece of vineyard as a present. Okay. So and it was like my own field, and he said, Okay, now you're responsible for this field. You have to work the field and you have to pick the grapes, you have to produce the wine. And so, of course, it was a very uh very very nice um And that was also Pinot Noir already? No, it was Muscatella, of course. Wow with with 13, you're just drinking the cabinet wines, of course. So that was the first wines getting into the water. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay. And my grandfather helped me a lot with the uh with the VD culture also. And you were 13 years old. Oh, okay. So of course they did the the most of the work they did by themselves, but I always had to be with them. Yeah, yeah. I always have to be with them to practice, to practice and to to to get the the um the feeling, of course, of the um of the season, yeah, and how the the the works are. So that was my first uh my my first project. Okay, and my my father said you are not allowed to sell this wine. And then we had a presentation at our winery, like the vintage presentation, and then we just poured the wine for the guests, and we had a small cashier on the side where we just wrote um invest for the next vintage. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very good, very good. And that was that was so getting also in touch with the business the first time to see okay, if you're doing a good job and the people like the wine, you can also make make a business out of this. And so and the passion and the business meet at at one point, and it was uh but you already had wine passion.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

It was not all not everybody's given uh uh uh it has to be in your blood.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It has to be in your blood. Yeah, so of of course, growing up in this area is you're very you're um very linked with with the vineyards, of course. And um for me it was there, of course, you have always periods when you said it's such a lot of work, and all your friends going out, and you have no time, you need to be in the the vineyard, but you're so linked in with with the culture and also with the with the work and with the family, so of course it's in your blood. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's that's good.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

It has to be very otherwise, you can't be that passionate.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, because it's a lot of work, even when you're young.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Sometimes people ask me, didn't what didn't you want to be a wincer and winemaker? I say, Me? I'm too lazy for that, you know. It's by far too hard work. No, forget it. I'm a trader, you know, I'm an important.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

I always say I like the work, but only for two weeks a year.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

And then there is also winter season, which is a little bit more calm, of course.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

I did five vintages in Central Ben at Dominu Bellamy. Okay, it was enough for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Um the wines are very, very low, so uh continue to work.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

But yeah, the the the sun is shining. Should we uh pour our first glass because it's half ten in the morning, so already no noise.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

We start with the Zet, it's in the in the fridge, and then uh we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, yeah, we can talk further.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

But we're starting up uh Sunday morning, yeah, it has to be. Uh we're starting with your Winters act. Yeah. Can you we already did a podcast with Winzer's act here?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Here at the same location.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Yeah, same location, same place, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Same place, almost same thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

And um, we it was podcast number nine, or was it?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yeah, Mo Moody. Uh numbers we forget. Uh wines we remember.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

What yeah. No, we did a podcast here with Winters Act, it was very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yes, yeah, I think it's uh it's at the moment a big thing, of course, Wintersect. And uh but uh a few of the producers focused from the beginning on also producing some sects. I I don't know if you remember, so um, if you saw our old um firming from the company, it was named Wine and Sekt Gut. Yeah, so my father started I think uh to produce the first sparklings in '91. Um so it's also a big tradition for our house. Um, since the beginning on, we produced some some sparklings, but of course, it was never the main production, it was always about 10,000 bottles a year. Yeah, so a little bit for us, but um there is still a big potential, I think, in the area also for sparkling wines.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Yeah, absolutely. And everybody, and in the Netherlands at least, everybody is drinking more sparkling wines, not only champagne, but also there are very good productions of kava and and and uh I don't I can't mention the word prosecco. Yeah, okay. But and wincerts is more and more important, and they are great Winzersacts. Yeah, well, uh I like Julg for instance, of course, very nice, and Blanc de Blanc is great, and uh and and the from Raumland and so forth and so forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the the sack production is increasing, I think. In well, it was already a big product in Germany, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Did you already make it with the same grapes as now, or did you do produce with other grapes?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Um, so uh no, they changed. Uh changed there there was also a little change, of course, not too much. But um uh the sect which we're gonna taste now is um is a new project, um a new product which we which we did the first time. Uh what we are tasting now. It's the base from Vintage 2020, uh 100% Pinot Noir, um uh about 20% reserve wines, and um those grapes coming from the very old vineyards from my grandfather and planted in the 1950s. Oh Chardonnay. No, it's Pinot Noir. Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry. It's Pinot Noir, which is noir, yeah. So that was the first time. And um mentioning this very old uh vineyards is that in the 1950s there have been a lot of plantings, and a lot of plantings also with not so high quality vineyards, so more on the quantity side. Yeah, so vineyards which with very, very big bunches with big grapes, with high acidity, with low alcohol, um which are which you need to do like a handstand to produce a good red wine out of it. But for sparklings, they are amazing. So you can produce very, very nice sparklings out of this. And you still have the same plantings, and uh the from the 1950s, of course, there are some plantings with small bunches which we use for the for the wines, for the for the red wine, also for the altereben, which you're gonna taste later. But there are also some some plantings with very big bunches which we use for the sparkling. Ah, okay. Okay, because you have to be low in alcohol, yeah. Low in alcohol, high in acidity, yeah, and uh of course the the the berries are also a little bit bigger, so you have not that high phenyl potential also, which is also very nice for the sparklings.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

And that is I I I think it's also your first when you do the vintage, these are the first to to to to um um to pick. To pick, yes, to pick, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, so we start with sparklings usually. It depends a little bit. Of course, the yields are a little bit higher in those vineyards, and usually those are the vineyards which are a little bit cooler and um ripening a little bit later, also. So it's almost when we start with the sparkling, it's not like there is a gap that we have to wait till we start with the others. So we pick the sparklings and usually step by step we start then with the with the other wines. And it's made in steel, I think. Uh no, it's in barrel. It's all it's in big oak, it's 2280 liters per barrel. So big big ones. Yeah. And it's a spontaneous fermentation. We have 100% malolactic fermentation afterwards. And then so we are just about um a half, no, it's about nine months uh before we went to the to the bottle. Yeah. And then we have three years on the on the bottle for the for the aging.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Three years aging, yeah. And when you uh uh discourge it, uh uh do you do any dosage? It's a brutnature. Brutnature, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

There is also no sulfur, nothing, it's just uh the wine by itself. Okay. Very very solo.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Okay. And and okay. And I think when you stock it up uh for three years, it's it's not by cork, like agrapados, for instance, but on no, it's with uh with uh this um Yeah, like a beer, like beer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. And then those okay, nice. No dosage.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

No doser, yeah, it's a Brit nature. And um of course 2020 a vintage with with higher concentration, um uh a warmer vintage, but also as I mentioned before, these vineyards can keep the acidity very well and also never uh mount up too high in the alcohol level.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

I see uh a as yeah, I always say uh you can see almost on the colour that's a blonde noir, huh?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Because it already has a little bit more colour, yeah. Very nice nose. It's like a furzy, uh uh peach, a little bit white peach nose. Some volume on the nose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

It's very elegant in the taste.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Very nice mousse also. It's also a volume thing. You can you can use it as an imperative, but you can also use it with food.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

With with with some food, yeah, to start with. Of course, it's it's not a vintage with the highest uh highest acidity, but it's a very balanced and very juicy vintage which you have over here. So yeah, of course, it's very well also mixed up with food. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

And you can stock it up a little bit if you want to, because it already had its BSA biologische Zoya, a ball. Yeah. All that means malolactic.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

I was just asking that. What is that for the Dutch listeners?

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yeah, yeah, but even the professionals don't know that. No. BSR. They think BSR is a motorcycle. Yeah. But it isn't. But it also is a bit motorcycle. Okay. Nice, very nice.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So this is very nice. Yeah, the sparkling is for us also a theme, uh a thing, meanwhile. Um we are now producing about 20,000 bottles a year. So even our production increased a little bit. Um, like the whole production in Germany for sparklings is increasing. More and more in uh important. And so this is at the moment our top product uh product which we are producing. There there is, as you know, also a Blois de Blanc, which we are which we are doing. And a rosé. And the rosé is coming out. Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah. So there have been a of course there. My father also produced the rosé. But then we had a gap in between because we had to rethink a little bit the style of the rosé. And usually I wanted yeah, I thought, okay, do we still need to produce a rosé? But there are some vineyards which are much better for rosé than for for blotten noir or also for steel wines.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Okay. Yeah, good. About focusing on grape uh grapes. You you uh you uh now you produce like you said, there's no Riesling anymore, there's no Muleturgh anymore, only for your own for private use, some little bit uh a little bit, a little bit, a very little bit, not for sale. Yeah, but you focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, actually. That's it. Because you change also, uh, for instance, the Malte dingen used to be Chardonnay with uh Weisburg Blanc. Yeah, I like that, and now uh no, I like it now more because it's 100% Chardonnay. Yeah, it's better, it's better. But you make another white wine, it's called Breiskow. Yeah, you have that since 2022, I think. 21. 21 was the first vintage, and that is a mix from Weisburgunder and Graubegunder.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yeah, yeah, so the um for the Germans are very focused on varieties. So Germans drink just pure varieties. They always want to drink their Pinot Gris, they want to drink the Pinot Blanc, they want to drink their Chardonnay. But in Germany, we are not that far that we are focusing on the tea and on the origin where it comes from. And the idea was because we've still been producing before this vintage, so 2020, 2029, 2028, uh, which we've been still producing a basic Pinot Gris, a basic Pinot Blanc. And for me, it was not the idea which the other wines being produced. I said we want to produce more the terroir-driven wines and also the original wines. And Preisgau is our area. And we said so for the estate quality, we should name those wines more like our area is Preisgau. And then the variety doesn't matter. So the variety is the second thing. We first want to produce the terroir, we want to smell and we want to taste this. And the variety is just a tool to to um translate the terror.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

So we we come on that later because we're going to taste it after the rats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yeah, yeah, you want it, you know the wine better than we to refresh. To refresh. Okay, but uh okay, but now you're focusing uh uh um for instance the Mulaturgau. You cut it down, you ripped it out, or what yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

So there have been a few fields which have been very old, also, of course, with a lot of SK wines in between, and uh they've been just not yeah. The vineyard was okay, the quality was still okay, but we said okay, it doesn't make sense for us also to produce Mulaturgau. When we produced the wines, we put a lot of effort also and a lot of work in the detailed working, and to produce a Mulaturgau for basic um stainless steel um uh style, we just it was just too expensive also for us to produce, to be honest. Also, and we said okay, we need to focus just on the wines, which we are also wanted to. And for me, it was the the goal was clear. It's Pinono and Chardonnay. Um, I think in our area we have uh very, very good potential for those two varieties, and so the focus was clear. Okay, for this.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

So you ripped out the Milleturgau and you planted uh Chardonnay, for instance, because the increase of Chardonnay in Germany is huge. Every year, hundred hectares plus.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of producers focusing more and more on Chardonnay, yeah. It's a very good thing because it's um you need a lot of good producers to get the you to get the the the attention also. Um and the for me the development of Chardonnay is maybe the biggest thing which we had in the last years in Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I know because I'm very fond of Chardonnays in Germany. Um it's it's a little bit a pity that uh your samples didn't arrive here. Yeah, yeah. So I had to pick in my cellar uh some wines, and I didn't pick up the Chardonnay because I don't have your Chardonnays.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, so the main production is still Pinot Noir, as I mentioned before, so 70% Pinot and just about 20% Chardonnay, but step by step Chardonnay will increase also.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Yeah, but and uh I read that your Chardonnay Schlossberg was the best Chardonnay in Germany last year, according to um what's the name?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Um did you read that? Uh the so Stuart Pickett um did an article from the from the Schlossberg.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

I think it was Stuart, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, with Suckling, with James Suckling in his time.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Something like that. Yeah, so you but everybody wants to have it, but I know uh we tasted it last year, yeah, and you uh they told me you only had two barries.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

You made 600 bottles of it. So yeah, it depends a little bit on the vintage, of course, but there are some vintages where we need to be very selective. Usually in a good year we produce between five and several barrels, but it's not every year that we can fill also this all of those wines. Of course, we are very restrictive, and if there if there is a barrel which doesn't um have like the the the 100% identity of the Schlossberg we want to produce, then we declassify this. Yeah, it goes into the alteraben, yeah, for instance.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Okay, yeah. Also very good. Very good basic material. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Okay, so you uh now you're focusing on these, actually on Pinot Noir and Speedregunde. That's that's your goal.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's our goal. So at the moment we are producing um uh so to see our range, maybe the basic it starts with the Preisgov for the whites, which is Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. Then we go up with Maldadinger Chardonnay, then we have the Alte Rebe Chardonnay, and then we have two single wine yards, which is Pienenberg Chardonnay and Schlossberg Chardonnay. So that's our portfolio for the whites. Yeah, yeah. Then we produce also one steel wine, which is made from Pinot Noir, um as a Rosé. The Maldadinger Rosé.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

That's new.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

That's uh we produced this also since Vintage 2020. Yeah, okay. And then we have the Reds, of course, starting with Maldadingen, going to Altereben. Now with uh since vintage 2023, we have also a Hecklingen Ortswine. So that's also a new wine. That's a new one. That's a new wine. Okay, it's just above the Schlossberg on a plateau field, which we grafted um to uh 2020. So 23 was the first vintage after the grafting.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Then we have the Aldeburg um Gigi, which we're producing since 2018. Yes. Then we have Sommerhalde, we have the Bienenberg, Grand Gru, we have Schlossberg and Wildenstein. So that's our portfolio. Then we have a little bit of the sparkling wines, as I mentioned before, but that's all. And before that's enough.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Yeah, we have loads. Actually, you have a lot of wines.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So when when I came home, we had about 30 different wines on the list. Yeah, it was almost a double, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Yeah, so you cut that off. And okay, very good. Um, talking about your Chardonnay, because I know actually it was uh uh from 1991, it was uh you could uh plant Chardonnay. Before that it was forbidden. But you told me you started already with Chardonnay uh before before that.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, so it was in our area also that it was uh that have been a few plantings coming from the very very old uh time in the 1950s. So where a lot of winemakers just been curious where they get some vineyards from, because in this time there have been not so much um nurseries for for wines, of course, and they went also to Elsas and to France just to buy to buy wines, yeah. Of course, plant marine material. So um, and in this time Pinot Blanc was very, very asked for. So a lot of wine growers wanted to plant Pinot Blanc. Yeah, and but in uh in the in France they said also, okay, I can give you something, it's very similar, it's close, but you can try, uh just name it Pinot Blanc, that's okay. And so and in in this in this time, of course, there have been a lot of a lot of different varieties like Oxroa and Chardonnay came also to our area. And uh, of course, the people knew that it was not Pinot Blanc, but they just it was not allowed by the government to to name it um uh Chardonnay or Oxroa. So the field's been marked as Pinot Blanc, and so when it's growing, uh you can't see it. No. Yeah, you can see it a little bit with the amplography in the Chardonnay, and you see the you see it a little bit, but it's not um and you see that the maturing of the Oxrois earlier, the skins a little bit thinner, and things like this. But it was okay, so the people didn't um didn't calm about this.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It was it was just um accepted.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Yeah, but now you have even Chardonnays from the fifties. Yeah, that's very that's very that's talking about talking about alterben, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

That's all in Germany is unique, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Yeah, there there are several several places where you find uh a few spots with very old chardonnay, but it's not it's not common, you do not have it uh so often. So we are very happy to have a few fields of this very old chardonnay, and the quality which we are able to produce in this vineyards are just different, of course.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

Yeah, but when you plant uh new uh chardonnays now you you buy your planting material in in France or in Germany? Because planting material in Germany is also getting better and better.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, so a lot of um I think maybe to tell this a little bit the the first development of the Chardonnay um selection in Germany was focused on a very fruit-driven style. So it was called the Dreher klone. And the Drea klone was more like a Chardonnay muscat. Yeah, and a lot of wine growers in the area planted this. Um so when you find now Chardonnay, also which is maybe 25 or 30 years old, if you have a vineyard in our area, or also not just in our area, also in the in the false area and further on, it's more mainly this drea genetic, and this is very aromatic. So when you taste the grapes, usually it it's tasting like a muscatella. So it's it's very difficult also for the vinification because um you will always have a very fruit-driven style. Sometimes it it reminds me a little bit of a maconet, it depends a little bit. So the fruit-driven us more fruit-driven style in a macone. But um, and my father saw this very early, and then he decided also to um to get the material from France and not planting the Strea selections, also to have a more neutral Chardonnay selection which focused a little bit more on the freshness, also, and of course, um representing a little bit better the terror and not so uh uh focusing on the fruit.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Yeah, but that's very good because in those days, they're like your father was already obsessed by Chardonnay from from Burgundy, actually. Yeah, that was his big example for him, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And that's why that's why he wanted to make it like that and not of course that was his dream, also, just to have this. He saw the terror, he saw the potential, and he said, Okay, we still there there are some things we need to change, and the material was one thing, of course. And um, so meanwhile, we are at the point that we are of course still buying some great uh some wines from uh from France. Um always different selections, trying okay, which material fits very well. And then we're starting, or my father started this with Pinot in the middle of the 2000s. We are doing this the same with Chardonnay now. So we are marking out out of these selections the wines which fits very well in our area and on our soils, and trying to produce our own massal selection.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Oh yeah, selection massal, yeah. You do it on your own.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

And that's very important because of course the conditions are there, different to Burgundy. We have a little bit more rain in our area, we are a little bit later, we're a little bit cooler. We have um of course we have a a very high potential of active limestone, but that's there are several things which are different, which we need to which we need to mention and we need to check okay, which windyards, which selections fits better in our area.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

But you say uh it's a little bit cooler and then in in Burgundy, a little bit, but I know uh you also have a lot of heat in your area. Of course, yeah, of course. Because I know for instance you told me uh when you do the vintage, for instance, you do it in the middle of the night. You you start picking at three o'clock or something. But why?

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yeah, yeah, why so the idea for um for for this came when I've been in 2014 uh in South Africa. Sorry. And uh in in this in this area it's usual to pick during the night because they have always uh heat uh during day, they are not able, and it's also very hard for the for the people to go to uh to pick the grapes during during this this very hot summer days. And um the first vintage we did this was 2015. Uh it was also very early, very warm vintage, and then uh I just went to a shop and I bought about 50 headlights. Yeah and uh all my my team said no, it's crazy, we can't do this. So the first day was very hard, the second day was a little getting a little bit better, and then you came into a rhythm, and then it was very, very easy because you started very early, it was very quiet, and you can imagine between three o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the morning, nobody's talking. So it's very focused.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Umbody talking. Yeah, I understand. But uh then uh you you quit at eleven o'clock, so they had the day off. And they had a day off, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

That's right. That's uh yeah, it was for of course they went to bed very early, but um it's uh it it's just because uh when you are getting into this rippement, it's much better also for yourself because you're not outside uh having about 30 degrees heat during the picking day, which we can have in early years in warm years.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

And your grapes come in at 30-35 degrees or something.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

That was that was the most important part, yeah. To keep the quality, the fruit fresh, yeah, and to work with the fruit in a very like always in this cool character.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

But you also use uh cool equipment, uh uh I saw that from Franz Wehrheim, for instance, has a big container where he cools down the grapes. So they do the harvest, they put it in the in the in the container for one night, and they use it the next day.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

So we we did this also um when we uh when we are a little bit too late in the picking um and the grapes are just too warm. Then we do this for the Pinot Noirs also uh for the grapes which we will have on skins. But for whites, it's very important for me to uh winify them directly because I do not want to have a too long skin contact also and an enzyme reaction, then we're gonna lose also some tetaric and some freshness. Yeah, yeah. So the for whites it's always directly uh directed basically. Maybe it's different with Riesling. I know for Francis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Okay, but with Chardonnay, I can imagine you you get a kind of an uh white also, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah. Yeah. So for us, we we do not work with mesceration time in the whites. Um it's just we have a different uh kind of um of of vinification, but maybe I go more in details later when we taste the bias also. And uh for this we we we just press directly and um uh work with the fruit very fresh. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

And when you do the picking, you have a big team, 50 persons. Yeah, about yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, and uh it's very difficult to get people I know uh from uh other growers who told us that they have very problems to find people to do the picking. Yeah, it's very hard work, I know from experience. Yeah, really. But for as we when you're not used to it, yeah, you are used to work the whole day in the field. But for instance, I was a student and I went to Burgundy to do the vintage two weeks. Now, the first few days I had no back anymore. I everything hurts.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

But you you you should come to us, the vineyards are not that low.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

But if you look at yourself, are you more spending time in the vineyard or spending more like in the in a cellar?

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Yeah, so vineyard is the most important thing, of course. Um during the season, vineyard is the key, of course. Uh that's that's uh we we put a lot of work in the detailed work in the vineyards, um, and we are always a big team, and um so for me the the quality is we produce the quality in the field, of course. Wow and in this in the cellar during the so I'm outside during harvest time um checking also the vineyard uh the picking date of the of the um of the different fields. That's the most important thing in the uh during harvest. Uh picking the the fruit on just the perfect day. So there's sometimes it's just one day which which makes the difference. Sometimes, of course, you have an easy vintage where you just go from the top down and you just uh know you can pick everything because all of the fruits are healthy, all of the fruits are good. And the weather stays good, and the weather stays good, but there are also different vintages where you have to to be very precise in every in every vineyard um day by day. And um so this is uh this is a very important thing. And then of course um during during the vinification in the cellar, that's uh when the team is very integrated outside, we have a very good team uh focusing when they know what they are doing, and then you just then I'm very often in the cellar when the when the system is clear which vineyard we're gonna pick step by step, then I just need to go out two or three times to double check, but then I can focus also in the cellar.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Um you have a very good assistant. See, she's her name is Ikiem. I wanted to name my my son uh gold capsule, but it was not allowed, it was not allowed for my wife. And uh no, so just a joke. But you have an a very good assistant, she calls Ikim, Iki M Viehauser, yeah, and she does a lot of your work, thinking, etc. also so she's very important in the team, I know.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

She she's she's very important, but the team is very big. And there is uh there I want to mention maybe all of the team, which is very important. Of course, Ikem is a very um important part of it. She worked with my father from 2006 till 2010. So they worked together five years, and um, but there is also Florian Isle, he's in the team since 2001, and he's like he's like my right hand in the cellar. Okay, so he does all the bottlings, he does the rackings, and he has Ruben Wileret on his side, okay, which he's also since 2009 in our team, and of course there is Grigor, and Gregor is the the man outside, and he's uh the one-yard manager, actually. The vineyard manager, and he's also in our team since 2001. So there's an old team already. That's an old team, yeah. And so there are a lot of people um who who makes the difference, of course. They have the knowledge, they know exactly what to do, yeah. Yeah, and that's that's that's very important. If you that's like when I'm in the cellar during harvest, I know Gregor's outside, and he he's he just works, he worked so long with my father, and he knows every vineyard, like uh it's like he knows every wine. Yeah, he's he's very very into um the the filosophy, he's very into the quality, and that's that's very important. The team is super important. Absolutely super important.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

Okay. Let's start with the Chardonnay. You you um shall we start another wine? Yeah, yeah. So we do the alter reben spätbegunder?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Um I would recommend maybe to start with the Bienenberg 2016, maybe also telling about the history, how we developed with the with the Pinot Noirs.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

But I I already I all wanted to start with the Chardonnay, because the Chardonnay, you you do the picking Chardonnay, and they come in into the winery. Yeah, in the cellar. Yeah. What happens? Do you press them directly?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Do it a whole bunch or whatever? So we pick the the grapes, of course, everything is picked by hand by the Chardonnays, and or not just Chardonnays, all our uh vineyards are picked by hand. And we pick the the Chardonnays in big buckets, so it's about 500 kilos. It's like the very classical system, like we work in our area. And when the grapes come in, we have like a readling table where I can double check the work from the from the vineyard, and also it's for the insects and everything, just to have a very clean material going into the press. And the so it works like over the reading table. Then we have um a crusher. We do not destem the whites, so the the whites are always crushed with the stems. With stems, okay. That's very important for this kind of style which we produce. And then we um when we crush the grapes, we are directly in the press. And then we have an old screw press. And that's a dose. This press is turning a lot, so it's a very, very high um uh extraction of fannel structure and also suspended solids. And so when we have this kind of with this, we we are um focusing a little bit more on the on the extraction, not with a maturation time, as I mentioned before. So we do this with the pressing system. And due to the turnings which the press uh is doing all the time when it's pressing, we have uh we have a lot of suspended solids. And this kind of suspended solids has a lot of nitrogen also and a lot of uh phenyl structure which we which we which we're extracting over there. Then we go into um uh like a stainless steel tank just for one night. There is no sulfur added, nothing. And it just settles down a little bit, and the the biggest dirt we just remove, and the rest we just take all in the barrels. So we have this we have the suspended solids also in the barrels. It's about 30% nuclear, and the rest are used barrels. Okay. And we use this also for um for the for the um for the uh fermentation and both alkoholic and And malolactic. Yeah. So the the fermentation is always 100% spontaneous. So we have a cellar where we put the barrels in, which is about um which is about 20 degrees. So we heat up the cellar a little bit if we need, if we're in cooler vintages. And then the fermentation usually starts after three, four, five days. So very early, because there is almost no sulfur added at this point. It's just about 10 milligrams per liter, just for the selection of the lease. Okay. And but that's all which we do. So we we are not focusing on the um on a very reductive point at this time. So we are focusing on a very oxidative point at the beginning of the fermentation. So at the at the beginning, a lot of oxidation to get more the oxidation potential away, that we are getting more reductive at the end. So that's a very important tool, also how we produce our chardonnays.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

And after the uh the the malo is directly after the the alcoholic fermentation.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Sometimes it depends a little bit how how fast uh the fermentation is. So when we have an easy fermentation and a fast fermentation, and the picking was very on one point, like when we pick all the chardonnays in about five, six, seven days, and the cellar was warm at once and the fermentation was through at once, then usually the cellar cools down very early. And then the malolactic takes time sometimes just after the uh after the winter in the next spring. So it's not it's not like and if we have a long warm cellar because the fermentation tooks more time, then the first barrels usually start before the winter time. That's always a little bit um I would say uh um an individual vintage thing.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Yeah, but uh you you let it go actually. You don't heat up or you don't cool down, you do it by nature.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

So what we what the only heating what we are doing is um at the beginning of the fermentation of the sp of the alkoholic fermentation. Because for me it's very important that when the the alkoholic fermentation needs to be very clean and very fast. If we have a long alkoholic fermentation, like you have it sometimes in the riesling for the Chardonnay wins, uh it it gets, in my opinion, not the best taste. So the the best barrels are usually those who ferment very fast during four, five, six days.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Four, five, six days alkoholic fermentation. Alkoholic fermentation. So it's a very we have this all suspended solids, the cellar has about 20 degrees, and the barrels get up to 30 degrees then. So yeah, they are very getting very warm then. But that's that's a very important tool also for me to get rid of this too fruit-driven kind of style which you can have in the Chardonnay. So with this very fast um fermentation, and also if you have this very intense fast fermentation, warm fermentation, of course, you get more and more reductive at the end. So that's also a very important part. And then we have um and the lees settle down very quickly. So if you have a slow fermentation, you always have those lees coming up and still working, still working, still working. And if when you have a fast fermentation, the lees can settle down and also have this this very more pressured reductive point at the beginning. So for me, the best barrels have the fast fastest fermentation. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

And uh, for instance, now we have now 2025 in barrel, I think. Yeah, so that that BSR, the the uh the the the malolactic, uh it was more or less last month, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

So there are some barrels which are already through the Malolactic, but there are also some barrels which are didn't even start with the Malolactic in vintage 2025. Yeah. But that's very that's very usual. So we have also always some vineyards which are a little bit earlier. Um but there at the moment there is no barrel sulfur, so they are still very um that's that's also the point when they're getting so reductive through the this fermentation system. We do not need to add early sulfur, and that's for me also for the development of the barrel and also for the maturing afterwards in the bottle, a very important part. As we start to add the sulfur, of course, we um we we block a little bit the the development of the of the um of the aging. Yeah, yeah. So as we try as giving the sulfur as late as possible. Yeah, that's a very important point.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

Nice. Okay. And um uh and w when do you bottle that you don't know exactly when you bottle, depends when when the wine is ready.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

When the wine is ready. So usually um uh 20 vintage 2023 was bottled at this time. So now we have we are in April, we bottled I think in February, March, and 2024 is still not bottled yet. So 24 took also a little bit longer time. And but usually what what's quite usual is that we had two windows on the full lease. Wow. In some some years, like 2024, we are two windows on the full lease in the barrel. And in bigger vintages, um like 2022 or 2023, we need also the barrels, of course. Yeah, then we rack, but we take the lease with and we go into the stainless steel.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Yeah, to mix it up and then okay. Yeah. So okay. So you have two vintages in barrel, actually.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

So if they are small, we have two vintages in barrel, but we have always two vintages in the cellar. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

That's a lot of space.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Nice. And okay, and you you bottle them no no um uh filtering or a little bit of filtering, I think.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

It depends also on the vintage. So there are some some vintages where we are able to not filter, but there are also some vintages when we need. So we we always try to have uh the the main goal is precision. So uh of course, we never would go into the bottle too too cloudy. So that's that's a part. Sometimes when I'm missing a little bit of the precision, then I think in our area and with the style which we are producing, then the wine needs to be clear. But you can see sometimes there is a very, very small uh cloudiness, and that's also the vintages where we do not filter. If we if we use a filter, it's just like a it's it's just like a sieve, it's not like a filter. So it's more that um big particles. Yeah, the the big particles are are removed, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:23

Oh two years ago I had the last bottle, 2012, Elta Reben Chardonnay. Yeah. Yeah. Your mother gave it to me. It was written on the on the on the bottle. There was no label on it. It was in my cellar.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

With the chalk, yeah. Yeah, yeah, with chalk, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Yeah, with chalk. Yeah, 12 was uh it was a very good vintage.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Yeah, yeah, nice. It was very, very drinkable. Yeah. That shows how much how good the wines can ripe.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Yeah. Of course, in this time the the Chardonnay was uh was made in the style from my father. Uh the wine's been uh picked a little bit later, also. The wine's been a different rich. They are a little bit more rich, they're a little bit more powerful, a little bit like a Mersol. Yeah, like a very classical style which has been produced also in Burgundy in this time, maybe. Yeah, and so that was uh yeah, it was always the idea from my father how a Chardonnay should taste like yeah. Well, okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Um we have something different in the glass.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yeah, we have something different in the glass. Uh we have the 2016 Speedburgunder, the Bienenberg. No, it's Bienenberg. I picked it up in my cellar last night.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

I'm very sorry that uh and next week I have I've uh we can we we can we can test because some you have your own party, yes. Yeah, we have we have in our samples, they have to be drunk.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah, you you should you should drink them early because they are samples, of course, they are not finished. And uh 2024 is very interesting, so and I hope you will have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Okay, it's a very nice nose.

SPEAKER_03 51:55

But this is a very nice nose. That is when you get this in the blind and and where you have to be a big idiot when you don't put Pinot Noir on this.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

You don't say Germany.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

No, in the nose, no. No, no. But why it shouldn't it's Germany, you know? It's it's no it's in the increasing quality of the spirit book.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

If you know, you know, but a lot of people don't know. I think there the so of course Chardonnay is the the theme which uh the most people talking about at the moment, but I think Pinot Noir, of course, it started earlier, and the development of German Pinot Noir is just um is is very very very good. Um we see we see a lot of producers focusing also on Pinot Noir, and um 11% already of the total plantings, eleven percent.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

And a third producer in the world.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Okay, Gracie. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

After uh uh France, of course, yeah. Then uh US.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Okay, and then Germany. We're wow, good to know. Yeah, that's uh and I think it's uh it's a great um uh great development also. As you see, the the there are so many great producers, meanwhile, which focusing also on this variety, and um I think it's uh yeah there is so much this variety fits very well to us in Germany also because we love precision and we love uh details, and I think that's maybe one of the most um variety where you have to put a lot of detailed work in it.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Yeah, and then you have something like pricing because Burgundy uh what you mentioned already, you you even you can't buy uh big, big it's sometimes prices get completely idiot. Yeah, and uh I and I I don't also I don't buy uh uh uh five, six, seven hundred euros a bottle. I'm quite crazy, but not that crazy. And you can find so good Pinot Noirs now in Germany, and Chardonnay also no no focusing on spade book under and uh it's crazy. And it started all with uh there are for me uh kind of the the the godfathers of the Pinot Noir in Germany is your father, is first for me, yeah. Uh my negel, yeah, uh Becca, yeah, and maybe the Knipser brothers, more or less, yeah, of course, and these for me, these five started up real the real spacebekoonder, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah, that and uh of course that it was this generation who who brought the knowledge also and brought the great material and focused and put like the first steps also uh to having the the great quality, starting with bariks, etc.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Yeah, yeah, because in the old days uh I was told I I told with uh with uh Mayen Nickel mit uh Berner, uh he said, Well, in the old days it was half trocken, and it was uh hundred hectoliters per hectare, and then uh and and and and it was uh uh eight day mark or something, or five day mark even, and that is not quality.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

And then you're talking like uh 20 years ago, 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Oh yeah, 30 years ago, I think. So something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

But what a booth then.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

But uh it started all up for me. Germans paid begun to sell in the end of the 90s, more or less. From 1998, 99, something like that. Yeah. It started up then.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah, it's uh of course short time. Very short time, very short time for a difficult variety. And um uh also maybe going back a little bit to the pricing of Burgundy, I can really really understand that it's very hard to produce a good Pinot Noir with a low price. So it's impossible. It's impossible because it's a very, very um uh like a very difficult variety where you have a put a lot of detailed work, leaf work, also selection work, low low yields, very low yields, yeah. So, as I mentioned before, we have 70% Pinot Noir and uh 20 and 30% white, but the production is almost half half. And there you can see also the the the the uh the percentage of the of the liters which we're producing at the end. Yeah, so of course, but um if you if you have a great uh Pinot Noir in your glass, of course, um uh the usually there are just smiles in the in the faces. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Everybody starts up with Bordeaux drinking and then they turn over to Burgundy when they're a little bit wiser. Yeah, really. He started directly with uh what is it?

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Uh May May says uh very much German winemakers say they they they don't say they make good right red wines.

SPEAKER_03 56:47

The Germans themselves. I yeah, yeah, we couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

I don't know, but we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

We we start this one. Start with the this way of the bin butt it's very nice, extremely and it's very clear color, also very beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

But it's aging very elegantly.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

But it's 90 this is 2006, it's 10 years old. Yeah. When you see this color, no, you don't say that.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

No. So 16 16 was not it was not an easy vintage, to be honest. 16 was uh was a very humid uh summer season, so a lot of a lot of pressure from down emilieu also, and there was uh of course a lot of work to do, um, also with the selection to get everything on one point with the maturity with the maturity. And 16 in in case was then very fresh. It was a cool harvest. It was uh the you feel it also the there's a lot of freshness in this wine. Um it's not the most matured grapes, you feel them also, and you feel also a little bit the style which we produced in those days. Also, they they are a little bit marked also with the whole bunch fermentation over here. Yeah, so um in 2016 we started to rethink a little bit uh the style which we produced. So my father coming from a very classical whole bunch um vinification style, um uh he started uh in the middle of the 19th, so 1996-97, been the first vintages when he started to experiment a little bit with whole bunch fermentation. And he found his peak, I think, so in the middle of the 2000s, also when he started to have about the average of 50 to 60 percent of whole bunch fermentation. Yeah, and um of course we tried also to produce this kind of style of Pinot Noir, and um uh I I I saw very quickly that um this is his uh handwritten like his signature, and um we we came to a point when we said okay, maybe we're not able to produce this kind of style because it's his style also. And um so with 14, 15, 16, we we we experiment a lot and we saw and 16 was even a result of reducing whole bunch. So at in this case, we just have about 30% of whole bunch. The picking was a little bit earlier. The grapes have been picked a little bit more on a fresh side in this in this and this time, and that's maybe why the the wine is also very lean in this in this in this point. Lean, elegant, and focus very much on freshness.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

We will see we're after this uh podcast, we have a tasting of 14 vintage of Hildenstein. Wow. So we there will be a big difference because I know the quite the wines quite well. I sometimes drink these wines, and you see a difference in style between your father's style and it's changing in 2014. Yeah, because in 2014 was the first vintage you did on your own. Yeah, 100% on your own, not anymore the influence of your father. And then then we will see the change in style of the wines. So tell us about it. Uh, you also picked this in the night.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

No, 16 was a very cool vintage. So, of course, we started early, but we didn't had to start at three o'clock in the morning, so we went out uh at five or six. That was also okay. Yeah, it's also a little bit easier for the seller, also, because you have to you you have to work till late, always till the grapes are in the in the wet and everything is um uh is in tank. And here we we started to pick the grapes in very small cases. So 16 was the first vintage when we started also to rethink our um our technical uh parts. Um, so the D-stemmer, there was a new technique for a machine who just puts the berries away from the stems. So we had a very uh we invested a lot in very high-quality techniques, which brings us um very intact berries, so that we have just like a caviar. And in 16, uh no crushing, no crushing. We wanted always to have the the the whole berries that the fermentation is intracellular, that we have focused very much on the purity and on the fruit. And in 16, um, we uh we had about 30%, which we didn't destem, which we just put in the middle of the of the wet. And it depends on the vintage how much you de-stem. Um so meanwhile, so 1716 was the the last vintage where we had to steer, and seven since 17, we're gonna see later also in the tasting, all the wines are 100% destemmed. So and from 14, 15, 16, um, it was the development of the of the new style. And you're gonna see also with 17, 18, 19, there was also a lot of steering till we found okay, when we destem 100%, then we then you need to um then you need to extract also a little bit different. If you work with stems, you have to be careful with over extraction because of the greenness. You can have uh a little too um um too much greenness, too much greenness, yeah, and a little bit too tight structures. So in this in this time we extract very softly, very gentle. So we just did some remontage and we've been very, very careful. And then um step by step with 17 with the uh completely destamped variation, we did also this very gentle vinification. So just remontage, uh just very soft, no punch downs, no punch downs. And you're gonna see in 17 the wines are very filigreen, they are very elegant, and they are maybe also a little bit too fragile. So in this time, we've been too careful, and then we tried also with 18, 19. Okay, we need to start to extract a little bit more, and then with 2020, I think we've been at this point where we can say now the the the turnings of the of the uh direction of the style change are very very small, and this is just uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

You say uh you uh you have an intercellular uh uh fermentation startup. What is the difference between intercellular and uh for instance in the Bourgolais style, the mascation carboni? It's a little bit the same or semi-carbonic.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Maybe a little bit. So if you do a mascation carbonic, of course, you are a little bit more on the very red fruit, red-driven fruit, and you get this this more yeasty taste also. And sometimes it um it can be very, very perfumed if you do it with Masceration Carbonique. And if you have this intracellulare fermentation, that's also nice. But you can work also with more air, so you can add also a little bit more oxygen to get rid of this primary and maybe um very short-living aromatics. Yeah, okay. Like Borgular can have. Yeah, like Boscholy can have in the youth, which can be very nice, of course. But we are looking more for very long aging potential also in the aromatics. That's why we do not add like some CO2 for carbonic maceration. Then we can we can work with with some air and we still have this very precise aromatic from an intracellular uh fermentation. And the difference is also if you crush the grapes, of course, the seeds are in the uh in the juice, and you're gonna have a completely different um uh uh tannin structure because you're gonna feel the tins also from the seeds. Okay, and Pinot Noir reacts very sensitive on this kind of seeds, even if you picked a little bit earlier, which we did in like vintages 14, 15, 16, was an earlier picking, and then it they could be too bitter, and so that was a very that was a very important part. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:14

No, because uh yesterday I tasted already Wildenstein and all the vintages because I wanted to check if they are I did a bit of codovette. Uh so I tested everything. I saw that 2017 was very light colour, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

Uh and also quite evolved in colour. Yeah, that's that's what I what I said. Here we've been too careful with the extraction then. Yeah, and that was the first vintage with a completely whole distempt. It was in youth, it was very, very elegant, very perfumed. But now we saw also okay, it was the wrong way because we've been too sensitive.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

Okay, what we can do, because we will have the tasting, and we can do after the tasting, maybe 10 minutes again with the podcast. We'll just leave here stuff here, yeah, and then we can talk a little bit about the taste.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

Share our experience. Yeah, yeah because I think it's very nice for the public to hear.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Yeah. Um, do you uh the the the alcoholic fermentation of the Pinot Noir is it is made in tank, in stainless steel. Not in open wooded.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

So yeah, we we had also some open wood fermenters. I saw them um my father worked a lot with them, but they're quite big, they've been with uh 6,500 liters. And um in this in the in the time when we worked a lot with whole bunch, it was able to get them uh filled up. But if you de-stem, you need a lot of material, so they've been just too big for us. Yeah, and we sold them. So it's all in stainless steel, and for me it's even a little bit better to um ferment in stainless steel because you can be very precise. And it's um you can also so the size of the stainless uh wets which we have are very uh are very good because it's about three tons, and the the uh the um system of the size of the wet, so how the diameter is and how the the high is. Is very important to get the temperature mixed up very well.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Yeah, because you told me that when you don't uh be careful, in the middle of the tank, the temperature goes too high. Yeah. And at the at the side it's too cold. And then at the sides it's too cool because of the cooling equipment.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

So the extraction for us the extraction is very important to have a point when you're running in the direction about 20 grams of residual sugar, then the fermentation is the fastest time and you have the the most heat at the in the tank. And usually the the the biggest heat is just underneath the cap. And uh you but what we need is for the extraction, we need this 30 degrees all over the tank. And on the sides, you usually have just about 28-27 degrees. And um if the tank is too big, even this is more extreme, of course. And what we do in this time is that we we're doing like a delestage system. So we take all the juice out, and the juice just is like a cooling system um for the for the vet um for the for the cap then. And sometimes you have 35 degrees just underneath the cap. And if you take if you do the delestage, the cap also breaks up.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:15

And then you can bring the the wine um on on the top, and then you get a more homogen um temperature in this time. That's that's how we try to bring a very homogene um temperature, about 30 degrees, from the whole tank over almost two days. Well, how long takes the alcoholic fermentation? So um all in all, we are classical-wise between 18 and 24 days on the skins. But that depends a little bit on the cooling uh period, so the cold maceration time which we do also. Um five to seven days, I think. Yeah, and sometimes we are going a little bit higher also. Sometimes we are having also like 10 days of cold maceration times. We do this in years where we have a higher maturity. Because afterwards, um with the higher maturity, you always need to be a little bit careful in years like 2022, which we're gonna taste, where you have a lot of thick skins. And the extraction later on in the fermentation with the alcoholic and with the temperature can be very high and very intense. But we want to have this fruit extraction also. So we do in this year a little and in those years we do a little longer period in the cold extraction time to have more sensitive extraction and have a shorter extraction time in the um in the heat time afterwards. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:33

Okay, and then after that you press it and it goes in barrel.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

So in barric. We press with a basket press. And the basket press is also very gentle, so we can taste very, very, very detailed um how which breast juice we're gonna take and which we are separate for the first time. And um then we press, we we do the assemblage with the breast, um, with the breast juice. So that's uh also very important uh thing to see. And then we go into the barrels and barrels. It depends a little bit. So meanwhile, there are some vintages where we just use about 10% of new oak. And there are also 2024, you're gonna see there is no oak, no new oak inside. So just beauty was the focus also. We don't taste 24.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Maybe maybe next week. Yeah, next week. Private.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:25

Should we move um to the next wine? Because uh we're already talking one one hour and ten minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

Yeah, sorry to talk too much. No, no, no, no. It's very informative.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

We're used to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

Yeah, always okay. But then um yeah, we can do this wine. It's beautiful, it's it's very elegant, a very nice um uh elegance and balance. The balance is super in the wine, huh?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

I I I would drink this like it is, to say the truth.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

This is so nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:55

So I think yeah, it's it's more a very lean characteristic of Pinot Noir, which we produced in this time, also. Very fresh style, and of course, 16 it's developing very well, it's still very young, and um there is there's no rush for this for this vintage. But um, I'm also very curious to show you also now the the newer vintages because that's um that's the way what we are doing at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:17

Yeah, maybe can you we do the 22 uh then? Okay. Um the barish is all French, or is it also German? I know I know you did an experiment with German wood.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:31

Yeah, yeah. So my father my father had some some uh some German oak from the Black Forest area. Uh uh, and but also the barrels been produced in France. So the the wood came from our area, and but in France, of course, they are for especially for Pinot and for Chardonnays, they they know exactly what they are doing. We have several good cooperatives in Tur in Germany, but they're very well known for the big oak cask, and they do a very, very good shop for the for the big oak cask for the food.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:59

For the food fooders.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

Fooders, yeah. But for the small barrels, sometimes um it's a completely different style, of course, and you smell it, so uh you taste it. And so for us, it was it it's all French style from the barrack. Okay, and meanwhile, all French French oak, but it's coming a lot from France uh Est. No, uh the the origin of the forest is Melange France Est. And Melange France Est, so the Vosge area, um, can be sometimes also a little over the border. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

As you as you know, so I think in the Melange France Est could be also some German oak.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

Yeah, but I once was in Saint Romain, yeah, and um everybody wants French oak. And I couldn't pass with my car because there was a very, very big truck standing there with three big uh trunks on it, yeah. Oak and the the number plates of the of it was the Russian number plates. Yeah, really. But actually, it doesn't care because why can't Russian oak can't be good? Because of course why no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:13

I think it's that there are we we just do not know too much maybe about those forests. Yes, to be honest. No we know we know a lot about the the the Drance, the Bertrand, um the the the Forge at the Vosh, the Vosges, the Chupi. There are so many forests which we really know very well because the French always focus on the origin and also in the couples, they focus on the origin on the oak. But there are there is a lot of um I'm for sure a lot of good oak um growing.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:42

Because Slovenian oak is coming, uh you see that a lot in uh in Italy. Yeah, so I don't I think in in Slovenia there's also a lot of experience with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:51

I think the biggest the biggest thing is also you there is a lot of good oak, but you should also know how to handle the oak. I think it's the same than you then with with grapes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:01

How long stays the your wine, the red wine spa spawn stays in oak, depending on the year, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

Yeah, but it's almost the same than we do with the white, so it's also two winters. So of course 24 was a little later, so it's still not erect at the moment, it's still in barrels, but we're gonna wreck soon. So it's about always 16 months, so in average, I would I would say, um, as we are as we are in oak. Okay. You're looking okay. And um but here also this the the main part is the purity. So here we are just focusing on the purity. If there is if there is a charge which is which should go out of the oak a little bit earlier because we're losing the purity, then we then we react earlier and we go into stainless.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

Okay, because we have we have now the the the alter reben 22 in the glass. Yeah, there's a quite difference in color.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

In the nose, it's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:57

Yep, it's a little bit more close actually. But but this is more on the darker fruit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

This is elegant but darker fruit.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:05

But dark fruit.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:09

This is the style direction or development also which we which we didn't did in the last few years. Um, as I mentioned before, there was a lot of um for us we've been looking a lot for for the style from Pinot Noir where we're going to. And my father planted a lot of different selections also and had his own massal selection. And with the grapes which he worked before, it was very the the the whole bunch system worked very well. With the earlier picking, which we did in the in the first years 14, 15, 16. Um, it was difficult also to add the same amount of whole bunch. Then we stopped adding the whole bunch and we focused on purity. 17, 18, 19, maybe we focused a little bit too much on purity. And 2020 we had the the combination of focusing on the purity and also on the extraction and also on the powerful uh part of the Pinot, which can have it also, always in balance with the elegance, of course. And um, so as you see now it's much deeper in color, it's um it's it's also more ripe picked. So meanwhile, we are picking also the grapes maybe in the same in the same ripening period as my father did, but there is no whole bunch at it. So that's typical. As you have the whole bunch fermentation, you lose a little bit of the colour. That's that's very typical. And um so here we just have the purity of the berries with a very high uh sensitive technique which can which can select very, very intense, also, just the best berries. So we have a selection outside, which we do by our by ourselves, of course. And there is also optical sorting at the end, which can also see things which you do not see with your eyes, and that's uh that's also a next step. That's that's a next next step, uh optical sorting machine. Uh uh and next step also to get just the best quality in the beds afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:10

Are you still uh searching for a style or do you now have the impression uh you're going in the right direction and you it's never ready, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:20

So of I think as I mentioned before, since 2020 there are not many turns in the Pinot Noirs anymore. So I think till 2020 we've been looking a lot. Okay, what's what's the style which we are looking for, which will be our style. And so with 2020, I think we we found the way of of uh of of producing the Pinot Noirs, and there is not much difference anymore. If you taste 2020, 21, 22, 23, 24, you see there will be a signature now. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

Okay, and that is the signature you search you searched for. Yeah, okay. That's uh okay, nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:58

But um maybe are a different question um because I want to ask you when you're here with the microphone. I'm a very fond of your the wine of 2018, the Maltadinger, it's Weiss Burgunda and Chardonnay. Yeah, that was my first experience that I learned from Morso when I got to know him. He said this is the one of the best wines from Germany, white wines that you can taste for a reasonable price. And I am a very big fan of that. And now if you're 100% Chardonnay, but why?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:35

Maybe you can explain that because you you need to buy the Breiscar, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:41

But yeah, you have the price car boxes full.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

So we we started with uh with Malthinger White in 2016, and um it was a step in between before focusing more and more on Chardonnays. Of course, there have been um uh Marcel knows it um before we produced also uh Pinot Blanc Grongru from coming from Bienenberg. I don't know. And uh those vineyards um been very very um very good. So on Bienenberg Grand Grue, but there was Pinot Blanc. And for me there was a time when I said okay, det Pinot Blanc Bienenberg Grand Gru, Pinot Gris Bienenberg Grand Grue, and there was also a Chardonnay Bienenberg Grongru, or there is a Chardonnay Bienenberg Grongru. There have been three wines with Pinot Noir, four wines from one vineyard. And it was that's typical in our area, you can find it a lot. But for me, we missed a little bit of focus on this. And I said, okay, we should just have at least one gongru from white and one gong from red maximum. Usually the best goal would be just one gongrue from each colour, uh just there's just one color for for one vineyard. That would be would be the biggest goal, of course, but we see we we we are still learning a lot. And um, that was the time when I said okay, there will be no more Bienenberg Pinot Blanc. But we still had those beautiful uh vineyards, and then I said, let's find a way how we can still um give those vineyards a nice place. And then, of course, we did assemblage with the with the Chardonnay in 2016 the first time. And uh the quality was um from the Chardonnay fields, they've been more on a village area, but we had this very Grand Cru style from Pinot Blanc, and it lifted this quality in this wine um uh a lot, also. Step by step we uh replaced this uh Pinot Blanc with Chardonnay. And there have been just a few more fields also with Pinot Blanc, which we said, okay, maybe it's not really Bienenberg Grand Gru. And then we said okay, maybe let's do a Breisgau with this rest of the Pinot Blanc which we have with the Pinot Gris together with the idea which I mentioned before, and we're just focusing on Chardonnay also with the Maltadinger. And you're gonna see also in future when we are doing when we're planting a new field, it's not Pinot Blanc, it's not Pinot Gris, it's Chardonnay. So the focus will be on Chardonnay and the Breisgow at the moment there is not much Chardonnay inside. We do not communicate, so but there is so there are always a few barrels of Chardonnay inside.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:20

Nice to know. Oh no, good to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:23

But step step by step there will be more and more Chardonnay in this wine also. Oh okay. Wow. Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:30

Um well um well you filter no no, you don't filter the spaper gun the way you know. No filtering, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

No filtering, nothing, it's just with wrecking. And um but yeah, with Pinot Noir, it's as I mentioned before, it's everything about precision for us, and this we it's always running through the vineyards during the harvest time, tasting the grapes, and you just have this aromatic potential in the in the berries if you taste this. That's our main goal, just to like you know the the book uh the Le Parfum, maybe like cover trying to um covering to protect this potential of aromatic which you have coming from the vineyard. And sometimes you walk through the vineyard and then you have one berry and you said, What's that's the aromatic which we are always looking for. And in 2022, you walk through this vineyard and you just had so many berries tasting in this very perfect taste. So 2022 for us was maybe one of the one of the best it's a beautiful vintage. One one of the best vintages, which yeah, which of course I've been it's not long since I'm doing it, yeah. But 2022 for Pinot Noir was for me just a uh I bought a lot of 22 spitbegner amazing vintage from good producers for you as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

It it was like happiness that you can produce something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:51

Talking about the alter raven, you see much more colour on it, yeah, yeah, and it's act uh uh quite dark fruit. Yeah, it's almost Gevre Champotin colour.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think it's special. Um it's a very special vintage. Um there have been just a lot of things coming together, and of course it was not a very humid year, so the but the rainfall's been just on a very good point where the maturity for Pinot was just very on a very nice level. And uh the berries stayed very small. We had a lot of skin um in in in in the value to the juice. That's why the there was a very high concentration and also a high colour. Yeah, the extraction level was not so high. So we here in this wine, there was just a remontage done. It was all grown on the vineyard. Yeah, there was no punch down in this vintage because it we would have been over-extracting the wine. So that was a very sensitive, um uh sensitive way of vinification. And of course, the alderben which we use for the Pinot Noir are not the same than we use for the sparkling. Uh, those selections are we do not know where they come from, of course. It's like like the Chardonnay, there have been a lot of plantings and different plantings, but there are several vineyards from very old wines coming from the 1950s, which have very small bunches and with with high aromatic grapes, and we use this for for for those wines.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:21

For Alterebe, because now there's no name of a vin uh from a village on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

It's Malto Yeah, it's Maldertingen.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:29

Okay, maybe for the listeners it's nice to know. What is Alterebe?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

Old rootstocks.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:35

But how old?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:37

So the oldest win the oldest vineyards coming from 1950s, so almost over 70 years old. Yeah. But of course, there are also some vineyards in which coming from the 1980s, middle of 1980s, and early 90s. So that's but the youngest are coming from the early 90s. But they're 35 years old now.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:54

That's already nice. Yeah, very nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:57

Good. Talking about the future, yeah, you never know. Yeah, you're still young. You're still young, you know. Um uh quality increases all because the vines get older, not only for you, but overall in Germany. I know from uh from Weingut Julg, for instance, and uh Franz Wehrheim and so on, and uh your your body colour. Um that uh they're very happy with the increase of the years of the the wines because they give better quality.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:33

So it's uh I think if uh that there are also a few points coming together. Of course, the knowledge is getting better and better, the experiments of the wine growers is getting better and better, and um the material is getting better, the material is getting older, which our generation before, so my father or that this generation was planting, getting in an age where you where you just get the best, the best qualities, the best resource. Um so there is just at the moment one direction, of course, and I think also the climate uh the climate change. Um of course there are coming some difficult win vintages, but there are coming also some vintages like 2022. And if you see the last if you if we just going through the last maybe six-seven vintages, we had 2020, which was an awesome Pinot Noir vintage, we had 2022, which was an awesome Pinot Noir vintage, 2023 was very good. So 18? Yeah, 18 was very good, 19 was also very good. So I think at the moment there are coming more and more of those vintages where you just get the perfect maturity of the Pinot Noir. Because we had in the past some vintages in Pinot Noir where we had to struggle a lot with the with the maturity.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:42

There was also in Burgundy. Yeah. And we look in the in the 70s and in the 80s in Burgundy, there were a lot a lot of uh don't buy it, don't buy it. No, don't buy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:52

It should be drunk now, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:54

So but it was very difficult, and now you see more and more, but that's an increase of the quality overall in Germany, yeah. When you see uh dry Riesling in the Mosul is very, very nice now. But in the old days, 20 years ago, you couldn't drink the stuff, you know. It's too far too hard, acidity, and uh you have to brush your teeth after that, and so on.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:18

But um, what I also see is an um in the future there are more less and less people who drink wines, also young people. How do you see that?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:29

Yeah, I I think so. In our area, uh it's uh there's a big cooperative, it's the um Preisaravinzer Keller. So a lot of uh vineyards surround us going to this cooperative, and um of course they sell the wines for a very cheap price. And um especially in this price range, the people do not drink anymore the quantity as they did before, of course. Um at the moment we are we still very happy with uh with with the um requested wines, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:03

At the moment it still it still works, but I think the the very high quality wines, I think there will be maybe no problem for this because there are some freaks like us who want to drink no no because you're big you you have a big demand, you yeah, and I think also me as an importer I didn't get I never got what I wanted in quantities. Why not? Because there's there's not enough. There's not enough, that's the problem. Because you make lower uh yields as your father did.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:36

Yeah, so the of course the production and uh for me there is just one direction going um not having this problem in future, and it's just focusing on quality. Yeah. Focusing very much on quality, not increasing the production, focusing more and more. So maybe maybe we in in future but that could be also that we have five factor less, um uh but focusing more on the on the

SPEAKER_03 1:28:01

Because uh when I see an ad here at these two, Marek and Mays myself, they they they love more quality, they they spend more on drinking less, drink better. And drink less but better.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:14

Yeah, I think of course that's I think I didn't see that I didn't see that last night, but okay. But you need also those nights where you drink a lot, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

Which year are you? 1919. Yeah. 1990? Yeah. Still yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:29

Big year in Burgundy and in Bordeaux.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:31

Good year, but also very expensive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:33

Yeah. Yeah. Talking about expensive, or your price increases.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:38

Yeah, but yeah, I we can talk about it. Of course, of course we need to we need about talk to uh it's it's um uh it's the direction which I mentioned. So our winery was when I took over the winery, or better, with the the last few years which my father had the winery in his hands, uh we had almost 40 hectares. So the winery was about 10 hectares bigger than we are now. And also there have been a lot of more production in the um in the in the lower qualities also. Uh and of course he produced also more GG's than we do. And for me it was clearly I'm not able to produce 40 hectares in this quality like he did. So that was he he knew the the winery much better than I. He he was he was much more experiment uh in in all those those kinds. And for me, it was also he he worked so much that was just just crazy. And I said, I'm not sure if I can do this in the same way than he did. And for me of course I've been looking for for some some ideas how we can also um develop the winery in a direction, and it was just okay, decreasing the quantity of the vineyards, trying to put even more work in the basic wines also, um increasing the prices also with the basic wines, and to get out of this system where you have the the the pricing with about 10 euro wines or things like this. I think for this we we've been more we wanted always to to produce and focus more the high quality wines, and that was always of course putting and that costs money because I know from Olivier Lamy from the manual.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:21

I sometimes speak to him. And then uh his father had two employees, he has six employees, yes, because the increase uh work in the wine yards, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

It's much more important than in the old days, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:36

And and all you buy an optical table, and you you have to invest lots of money in on an equipment and so on.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

Yeah, it's I I think it's the same in every in every um in every business. It's also in the in the gastronomic, it's the same. Yeah, you see, sometimes they are just open four days a week, but they are focusing more on the quality.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

Yeah, if you want good people, you have to pay for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:01

And that's saying you have a good team and you want to stay with that team. So yeah. That's also the knowledge important part.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:09

Okay. Uh what do we have now in our glass? Because I'm smiling. Yeah, this is the Breisgau. Yeah, I like it. It's my favorite. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:18

So yeah, we produced this wine the first time in uh 2021 when we turned with Malta Dinger to 100% Chardonnay. And um I mentioned before a little bit the idea of the Breisgow focusing more and more on the on the origin, but it comes from taking back a step back with the variety for um communication. You're gonna find um uh not the single varieties on the label, there will be just white wine on the side. That's also a tool for us, also adding a little bit chardonnay inside, um, which is very important also for us. But this wine is also made in the same way that we do our gongruse for chardonnay. So there is just one signature going through the reds and the whites. The whites are made from Breisgau to Schlossberg Chardonnay in the same way, and for the reds, it's the same from Maldadinger till Wildenstein, always made in the same signature, it's just a vineyard, um, which is which makes the difference also.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:14

But I I when I do when I taste it, it has a little bit lower uh acidity as Chardonnay. You can smell it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:21

Yeah, yeah, it's of course it's Pinot Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc. Yeah, the Pinot Blanc in our area needs to pick very ripe so um that you do not get this fennel bitterness touch, of course. That's a very important point. The Pinot Gris you can pick a little bit earlier, but not too early, of course. Pinot uh Pinot Pinot Gris is also very sensitive to the bitterness. And um for this, it's it's just very important to give it enough time, also. Even it's a estate quality, so we it's called goods we're for us the regional quality, yeah. And um, but we need also with this kind of style in this price range, we need also the 60 months at least, so the two windows on the in the barrels, um, to to um to get it in the bottle um in this in this way.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:04

So elegant. I know you can't sell this for 10 euros, it would be no ridiculous. This quality is very nice. Yeah, it's uh not able to produce, yeah. One thing more, and then we stop, and then we do the tasting, and after tasting, we do uh 10 minutes or more.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:17

One hour twenty-three minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:19

Yes, because we have one thing not mentioned yet is your rose. Yeah, okay. Because you make quite a quantity of it. It's 2021 was the first vintage. 2020, yeah. 2020. 2020. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. But it was in those days more an experiment, IKM told me. No, because you you got a demand, because the consumption of people is also changing, yeah? Lower alcohol, lighter wines, etc. etc. And I know you don't you won't make your spade begun on 9% alcohol. I know that. It's not but you changed uh to uh a little bit to rose.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

So um the idea for this rose came from uh two friends of us, um very good Somilias from from German uh restaurants. Maybe you know uh the the Tandris in in Munich also, uh in this time uh a very uh insane restaurant, and uh and this time it was uh Nico Spanja and Thibaut Wetzel from Five in Bochum who said please could you uh we want to we want to have a rose coming from Germany, uh a serious rose, uh which we can use also for food pairing. And then I said I have no clue. We never produced a rose, I have no clue how to produce a rose, but if you want to go on the risk with me, okay, we try to produce a rose. And uh of course we did our thoughts, and uh there have been some vineyards uh which we always struggled a little bit to produce um red wine out of it. Um it was always the latest vineyards which we needed to pick. There was a lot of selection work doing, and for red wine, you never reach this level of quality in tannins, and also um they've been maybe a little bit too um too light in soils, and uh of course too too uh to yeah, too mineral-driven, maybe yeah. The the juiciness was missing.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:09

Actually, actually, you had a a spade begunder on not a good place. Yeah, that was it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:15

That was not not good for for red wine. Yeah, yeah. And then we we okay, we we tried with this with those vineyards, they could be maybe interesting. And um as I said, we had no clue how to produce a rose, we just did the same than we do with our chalonies. So we we picked the grapes, we crushed them with the stems, and then we in 2020 it was a warm and uh it was a warm and matured year, so we did not done any maturation time. We pressed directly, so it was more made like a blade noir, but of course you had slightly color from the from the very intense and concentrated and uh concentrated here. Um and then we had also those uh those spontaneous fermentation, we had the the the BSR, the malolactic fermentation at the end, and we had also those um those two windows on the fullies, and afterwards also in Barricks, yeah. Also in Barrix, also for use Barricks. No, also 30% new oak. Also, also 30% so same same same identity, same signature than for our whites. Okay, and at the end we've been quite surprised about the result because it was made. Um if you had it in a black glass, you wouldn't uh guess it's uh it's a rose. Um and uh that was the start of producing our rose wine, and meanwhile it's uh it's a very important part of our portfolio, I must say. How much percent? Ah, so we produce now about uh 8,000 bottles from this wine. So it's uh yeah, it's quite a production. And um of course um if you sell this vine as a rose, you have no chance. You have to sell it as Malta. Yeah. As more you have to it's more also um a transcription of the terror, more a little bit on the on the on on a on a more red kind of sidric aromatic than you have in the in the Chardonnays, and but it's a it's a uh yeah, it's a very interesting way also um for translating the soil with Pinot noir in a in a white kind of kind of uh very nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:13

I know but I I was surprised because I it was I thought it was twenty-one, but twenty-two uh twenty twenty. I mean yeah, yeah, twenty twenty. I'm a little bit older now, so I forget uh things, you know. Oh but I was quite surprised when I tasted it the first time. I was surprised by the quality because you only see that quality uh in top uh Domain Tampier or something like that. Uh Provence quality. You now you see it a little bit more also on the and in on the Vesivius and Aetna. You have very nice uh roses from uh Terranera, for instance, and good and yeah, and Palette and and uh all that kind of South uh yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, very nice. Okay, this Bryce goes beautiful, as mentioned already. Uh we thank you till now because we uh you have to go and do an interview with Lars Daniels from Paris, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:06

Perhaps we liked it, yes, yes, yes, yes, and also we had them in the podcast and we have him uh yeah, we had them in the podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:13

Yeah, yeah. We talked about Chardonnay in Germany, German Chardonnay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:17

Okay, yeah, yeah. And also we talked about the Baltendinger. Yeah, yeah, we had the Maltedinger, yeah, yes, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:23

So we you will do the pot uh an interview now with Dass. After that, we do 14 vintages of Wildenstein, and after that we do a 10 minutes, 15 minutes talk about Wildenstein and in a voices maybe to hear when you come back.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:36

We're a bit more happier than okay. Thank you. Thank you till now, and uh we will speak each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:42

Super. Yeah, thank you. Okay, here we are again.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:46

We are there again.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:47

We did the tasting, Wildenstein, 14 vintages we did. 14 years. Julian, top, top, top tasting. Some of them, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:57

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the organization, Marcel.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:59

Yeah, it's a pleasure, absolutely a pleasure. We did 14 vintages, we started with the 2007. Can we do the all all give a little bit of uh what you think about the old vintage? Only a few sentences starting with the 2007, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:18

Yeah, so seven, seven classical vintage, of course, a little bit underrated, also could be very, very pure and very very elegant. The bottle was a little bit um uh cloudy, but I think it was okay. Yeah, showing up nice, very classical, all German Pinot style, maybe. Then we had 2008. It was one of my favorites. It was shining, yeah. It was a very great bottle. So cooler vintages, late harvest. It was uh early October till middle October where we picked the grapes in this vintage. So you feel the very cool climate Pinot Noir over here. So that was very nice, very nice, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:57

People love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

Yeah, 2010.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:59

The bottle was not really okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:01

Yeah, we had a little struggle maybe with the uh with the cork or something like this, so it was not shining, but then all in all would be a very great vintage. So maybe for me, one of the favorite vintages from my father. So we have to taste this later. Yeah, yeah, okay. We do that. Okay, yeah. Eleven 2011. Eleven was for me one of the winners in the tasting. I had to say. It was very open, very ready to drink. That was that was super on point. It was also a very nice bottle, very juicy character, very concentrated, and the pure fruit aromatic. So for me, a very, very nice bottle. I was very nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:35

And it doesn't have a great press, 2011. It's nobody talks about it, but it's very beautiful wine.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:42

We talk about it and then it's sold out.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:45

2012.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:46

Twelve was very interesting because very very stylish. So uh 2012 had more this kind of whole bunch reductive touch and uh very very lean lean wine, yeah. So also very, very interesting for me to to see. I tasted this since a long time.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:04

Uh yeah, yeah, um 12 is one of my favorites. Yes. The Schlossberg is super. Yeah, I don't offer drink to Wilderstein, of course, because there are only a few bottles per venture. The Schlossberg is also very good. But I liked it a lot, a lot. 13, also, I didn't expect that, but it it's almost similar with the 12.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:25

People said people say to me, like you 2013, it's not a good year, they say. They smell, yeah. They say, wow, this has potential. Yeah, also art and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:42

13 was also um a little bit similar to 10, so cooler flowering, very small berries, very high concentration in this year, but with a lot of freshness. Yeah, but you see, okay, also uh almost the same style than we had in 2012. So a little bit more home bunch, a little more bit more the stylish, uh stylish reductive way also in the Pinot Noir. So yeah, but uh performed, performed on a very uh individual way. 14? So 14 uh here difficult yeah very difficult year, so uh very acidic driven, of course, with a lot of whole bunch early picked um uh due to the Susuko Drosophila and also uh the first year without my father. I think 14 is maybe not the greatest vintage, but yeah, we see maybe maybe maybe it gets its curve, yeah. Fifteen? Fifteen, so um one step above fourteen, of course, better vintage, but still not easy. Still, still very very early picked, yeah, still a lot of whole bunch influence, uh very tetaric style of Pinot Noir. So not not the easiest drinking Pinot Noir, no. No sixteen and sixteen again, another development. You find that okay, we we we had to learn. Of course, 16 uh first year with a little less whole bunch, a little uh later uh picking. It helps uh it helped a lot, but still a very fresh style of Pinot Noir. Yeah, 17? 17 completely different style.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:21

Um very complete.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:22

Yeah. So here we started also to less wood, less wood, of course, almost no wood influenced, no new wood influenced here. So we had we picked later, we had also a very gentle extraction. The colour was not so dark, so it's a wine which is now on a very nice point to drink, but I would not recommend also to wait too long with the 17. No, no, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:43

One, two years is okay, but uh yeah. Uh I I should drink it also.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:48

18, step up, huh? Wow. 18 completely different now, another completely different vintage. Uh much more uh consideration, much more purity in the fruit, uh, much more precise in style also. And I think 18, of course, very high potential in the vintage. And also um, this is uh this is yeah, just uh a step above because we did also we change a little bit extraction. You see that cut the color is darker, the wine is more compact, and still still a lot of potential. Very young wine. Okay, 19? 19 a year with a little bit more water, but still with the maturity of 18. Not not the concentration than 18's got nice vintage, good balance, but also not the year which I would wait too long for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:34

But no. Moving on.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:36

20?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:38

I still have 20 in my glass. Cheers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:42

2020 is um uh I think the first vintage when we when we find our our way in the the when we settle down more in the in the Pinot. So 2020 for me um a very pure style with a with a higher extraction, with a very good potential, with a good backbone also, and with this meaty character, which uh which Wiltenstein can get also in those years, yeah. Which helps a lot also with the majority. So 2020 still at the beginning of his development, and um, so for me a great vintage. Yeah, yeah. Nice. 21 you didn't make, it's all went in the Bienenberg. Yeah. 22. And 22 is maybe for me at the moment one of the biggest red wine we produced um in the past. For in since I took over the winery, of course. My father did did great, did his great wines, and um we had now a few years to train. And 22 is maybe the um the the top notch now of our training, I would say, um, with the Wiltenstein. So you see it, it's much more violet in the color. It's uh there was been very, very small berries, high concentration, super pure fruit. Um, the grapes just been like painted at the at the at the wine stock, and it was just uh a present um uh given to pick those grapes and to vinify those grapes. And only 30% new wood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not much new wood, and the wine doesn't need those new wood. It doesn't need it. No, there is enough structure coming from nature and this vintage. So yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:09

Well, this was it. Thank you for thank you very much for you for being here. You especially from uh Maltingen to Amsterdam this morning, and you will go back this evening, yeah, by by flight. Yeah, and it was a pleasure to have you here. We learned a lot, and I I loved your wines already, but I believe them, I even love them more now. It's one it's for me thank you absolutely. I don't want to say something. I like a lot of the German Pinot Noirs. I I have a lot of Pinot Noir in my seller from great producers, but for me, Uber is it makes a market. It makes the market is for me the top.