Freitag, 22. Oktober 2010

Harvest and EWBC 2010 Vienna

Took a little while for this post but on the other hand .. harvest is finished.
This year was an unusually cold and wet one here in Austria. Cool Spring temperatures shifted the flowering about 2 weeks backwards with a heat spike just in the flowering week followed by torrential rain. As everybody knows that pretty bad for the fruit set. Sensitive varieties like Saint Laurent, Muskat, Chard and Pinot Blanc responded with close to 30 to 40 percent less yield. This crazy weather continued over the summer and brought us perfumed grapes due to high differences in day-night-temps, low sugar contents, high acidity and loads of canopy work in the vineyards resulting in an elegant but small harvest at Artisan Wines.
Our reds are currently untasteable due to the fact of ongoing Malolactic Fermentation ... everything keeps it's raspberry yoghurt touch on the nose .. but this will vanish as soon as the MLF is finished and the diacetyl is transformed afterwards.
The whites were racked off this week and are now waiting for lower outside temps for stabilization purposes.

Last night some 80 attendees of this years European Wine Blogger Conference (#EWBC) gathered at the Badeschiff for the Kick-off dinner. Important fact: Everyone was allowed to bring the own wines which resulted in a happy radom tasting of Schilcher Sturm, Grand vins de Bourgogne, Riojas and Artisan Wines.
The 3-course-meal started with fingerfood (very nice and spicy !!).
First course was a tartar of salmon trout, Viennese potatoe salad and field salad.
Main course: Braised shoulder of lamb, Swede oriental style.
Desert: Créme caramel, tonka bean and citrus food.
All in all well made but rather small portions. One can find certainly better restaurant nearby!
Anyway interesting people, glasses full of nice wine and exiting converstation made this a gorgeous evening. I can not wait to join the others for todays first conference day!!