The Schloss Wackerbarth State Winery kicked off this year’s grape harvest with the Saxon specialty grape variety Goldriesling. At the start of the harvest, vineyard manager Till Neumeister expressed optimism about the new vintage. “We’re in a really good position,” he said. “The basic conditions for a very good vintage are in place.”
Vines Unscathed by Heat Waves
The vines weathered the mid-June heat wave—which saw temperatures reach up to 42 degrees in the vineyards—”incredibly well,” said Neumeister. “They were just past flowering; the berries were at the pea stage, and at that stage they aren’t yet at risk of sunburn.” Even during the second heat wave at the turn of July and August, the damage remained surprisingly limited, as Neumeister explained. “Given the number of hot days, you would have expected more sunburn than we actually ended up seeing on the grapes.”
With 30 hot days, the record set in 2018 (27 days) has indeed been surpassed, but during the growing season—that is, the period from budding to ripening—there was twice as much precipitation. “You can see it clearly in the vines themselves—they look full of life,” said Neumeister.
