2019 in the Mosel - Vintage report from Weingut Willi Schaefer

Yes – we are overjoyed about the results of harvest 2019! Currently, the young wines enchant us in all variations from our “village-level” to Beerenauslese. What we love most is the complexity, the detailed juicy-elegant character, the multilayered fruit flavors plus, of course, the distinct acidity. Of particular note is the complexity of our Auslese wines. Vintage 2019 also provided us with a GG (Grosses Gewächs), though we will release it at a later date.

Budbreak occurred in mid-April, but frost on the night to 5th May turned out to be disastrous for many winegrowers. We were lucky to escape with no more than a scare.

By the end of June, flowering was finished, but not every flower turned into a berry due to some rain. This led to nice, loose grape clusters.

The summer was sometimes far too hot. Many grapes were partly burned from the sun.

Nevertheless, the grapes developed marvelously, and we started picking on September 25. Just a while later, it started raining from time to time – the night mare of every wine-grower. Luckily it was rather cool and the rain turned out to be more a drizzle so that the grapes stayed mainly dry.

We worked hard and long to check every grape and cut out the sunburned berries and those not fully developed, plus other berries or grapes bunches that we did not like. Then it got very warm. We took advantage of these dry and up to 27-degrees-Celsius warm days to pick excellent grapes for our Auslese- and Beerenauslese wines – simply fantastic! After this warm period, the development of the remaining grapes in the vineyards speeded up extremely fast and we speeded up with them. Our great harvest team and the entire family was deliriously happy but also completely exhausted as we were finally able to celebrate the end of the harvest on October 19, 2019.

Vintage 2019 delivered the entire spectrum a Riesling grape can offer: healthy and crunchy grapes, picture-book-like grapes with small golden-yellow berries, as well as perfectly botrytised bunches. Everything we didn’t like, remained in the vineyard. We are very grateful that our vines haven’t been affected by hail and frost, so we will not complain about the reduced crop. It could have been much worse. Climate change poses great challenges for us.

But we grow with our tasks-, and we are very pleased about the splendid quality of vintage 2019!

Weingut Willi Schaefer, February 2020