School’s out for summer! 🥳 I just received my final grades for the semester — I passed all my classes and received positive feedback on my thesis paper proposal. It’s tentatively titled, “Organic Banana Peel Compost as a Sustainable Source of Minerals for V. Vinifera.” Fourth semester - done and dusted.

For the fifth semester, I will be apprenticing on the North Fork of Long Island, New York at Paumanok Vineyards. If you happen to be around come for a visit in late October and I will give you a tour before I head back to Austria on 1 November.

In the meantime, it’s been a wild growing season thus far in the vineyard. April’s showers became May’s showers and all of this rain has made for some major growth spurts in the vineyard. June was particularly hot and dry for the later half of the month so growth is now balancing out. But the real star of the summer is the Chenin Blanc. In fact, 17 of the 100 Chenin vines have produced inflorescence, which once they mature, become grapes. This means that if I am a little lucky, I should have enough Chenin to produce several bottles - a year ahead of schedule.

Putting the Fun in Cow Manure: The 500P

As I have shared previously, at Kapitel Zwei Wine we are avoiding synthetic fertilizers and are opting instead for organic and biodynamic methods, including the 500P.

On 28 May the cow horns were dug up after being buried for six months. The contents, i.e. the cow dung, is then stirred with rainwater for one hour (danke to Marie-Helene) and then sprayed on the soil of the vineyard. The result should be healthier soil with more microorganisms. I’ll be doing a soil test in 2024 to compare to my 2022 soil sample, so stay tuned.

Wine Press Delivery

A few weeks ago the 80 liter wine press was delivered. After considering a few options I went with a hydro/pneumatic press from the Slovenian company Lancman.

If you are curious on how it works, basically, the brick-colored rubber balloon, in the photo below, is enclosed in a steel cylinder. The balloon fills with either air or water and gently crushes the grapes against the inner walls of the cylinder. I was considering a wooden basket press, but they can be tricky to clean, particularly when I don’t have a lot of water in the vineyard to spare. For this reason I will be filling the balloon with air coming from a solar charged battery-powered compressor. If this all sounds risky it is, so I will be doing a test run with some table grapes just to make sure.

Red Clovers Everywhere

One way to add nitrates to the soil organically is with red clover, which was planted in the spring and as you can see below they are really loving the vineyard. While it will take about two years for the effect of the nitrates to be noticeable, the density of the clovers are keeping the soil from drying out. In a few weeks I will press them down so they seed the vineyard for next season.

And Now for the Big Transformation

If you can imagine, the schuppen “hut” was filled with 30-40 years of clutter from a crumbly sofa, to kitchen cabinets to tattered clothing. Close your eyes and imagine the cellar or attic of your grandparents — that was the inside of the schuppen. But here we are two years later and it looks pretty great. Check out more photos on Instagram.

We look forward to hosting you for tastings in 2025.

Next up is the cellar transformation. I am adding insulation to the walls to maintain cool temperatures between 12-20 degrees Celsius (53-71 °F) — yeasts can get stressed in hot temperatures producing off flavors during fermentation.

Cheers,