Exams, Pruning and Progress

Servus!

Today is the first day of the second semester at IMC Krems University, which means I survived the first semester. To the amazement of myself and my tutors I passed algebra with a 74 percent on my final exam. I had less trouble with my other classes averaging a mix of A’s and B’s or as they are known in Austria “sehr gut” and “gut”. This semester I am super excited for “Wine Processing I”, “Viticulture II” and “Wine Tasting and Description II” and less excited about “Macroeconomics”, “Statistics” and “Accounting II”. Wish me luck.

Learning to Prune

On the final day of viticulture class we went to a local vineyard, Weingut Dockner, to learn how to prune the dormant vines, a critical step in preparing for the upcoming season starting with bud break. Without pruning a vineyard opens itself up to diseases, lower yields and poor fruit quality. 

There are several styles of pruning, but the overall idea is to give the vines the best chance of producing quality fruit, while also making it easy to harvest. At Dockner we used the cane and spur pruning techniques, which are illustrated below. I enjoyed it so much that I offered my services to the winemaker Verena Dockner who took me under her wing for two days of pruning.

Progress at Kapitel Zwei Wine

Thanks to the outstanding support from the Landwirtschaftskammer Niederösterreich (Lower Austria Chamber of Agriculture) all of my paperwork has been submitted to import my grape varietals, including Chenin Blanc, Roussanne and Sémillon, from France. I expect to hear from the review board by 6 March for the approval.

I am often asked why Chenin Blanc, Roussanne and Sémillon and I guess I have two main thoughts, one pragmatic and one scientific. Pragmatically, I am not going to produce a wine in Austria from Riesling or Grüner Veltliner that will match the quality of a producer who has been working with these varietals for several decades. There are excellent wines already available in Austria, so what could I bring to the market that would be unique? Also, to be honest, while I do enjoy these varietals, they aren’t my favorites. 

Scientifically, climate change is impacting wine making already today and Austria is expected to get hit particularly hard with temperatures increasing 1 to 2°C more until 2050 or worse, a global temperature rise of 2°C might lead to a rise of 4°C in Austria. So why not experiment with new varietals that thrive in heat? I am inspired by the Super Tuscan wine makers of Italy, who began growing non-indigenous grapes, such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, in Tuscany in the 1970s. Today they are world famous such as Sassicaia and Tignanello and can go for more than 100 euros a bottle.

Also, I am thrilled to share the layout of my vineyard. I owe a big thanks to my fellow student and winemaker Agnes Mantler from Weingut Mantlerhof. Her suggestion to slightly slant my rows helps me squeeze in another 25 vines and cut costs by requiring less tension pylons.

The vines will be planted about 1 meter between each other and then each row is about 1.5 meters apart. While this is narrow, I will be harvesting by hand so no need to make room for a tractor.

Last Call

Thanks to YOUR feedback and some market research I have decided to scrap the label design and start fresh. Thank you so much for your input it was very convincing. I will share the new design with you when it’s ready.

I’ve also been asked to pull together a list of recommended wines I have recently enjoyed. It’s a great idea and I am happy to share. Probably the easiest way to do this is via Vivino, a free app for vinophiles. You can check out what I have been tasting here.

Also, a huge shout out to my former colleagues at IBM Research in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, who surprised me last week with an awesome voucher for a wine cellar tour and an Austrian shop for vineyard supplies, which will come in very handy in a few months. Thank you all so very much.

And finally, Kapitel Zwei Wine has been included on WineMaps.com, a new service to help consumers find wineries around the world.

Thanks again for joining me on this journey and if you have any questions or happen to be in Krems drop me am email.