The winter 2020/2021 brought good amounts of rain and refilled the groundwater wells. This is important for the supply of water during the hot growing season. Spring and early summer in April and May came with quite a few rainfalls which increased pressure of the dangerous downy mildew, hence careful vineyard work was needed. Fortunately, we did not experience any frost damage in April, as many other regions like Italy and France did. Also the wet pre-summer allowed us to maintain the important cover-crop in the vineyards longer than usual. This helps to increase biodiversity in the vineyards and keep the soils healthy.
The important summer months were hot and dry as usual with frequent temperatures over 33°C. Two very limited periods of 2 -3 days each with temperatures exceeding 40°C in July and August did not do any damage, to our great relief. Surprisingly we had almost cold nights in July and August with temperatures down to 11°C, which helped to increase the phenolic maturity and the aromatic quality of the grapes. Harvest started on 18th of August with the whites and ended 24th of September. We could harvest completely healthy grapes with not much need of selection. First tasting of the young wines showed very balanced wines with beautiful and intense aromatics.