Portugeezers: A chat with Jonas Brand

Weingut Brand
Germany, Pfalz, Bockenheim

As the sun arrives, so do the wines from those sunny German brothers, Daniel & Jonas Brand. Arriving with this tranche is a top up of their single-varietal whites from 2019, their 2020 not-nouveau: Brand Rot and the new vintage of Wildrosé. 

We caught up with Jonas recently as he was negotiating his tractor through the wind tunnel that is their Portugieser vineyards. The growing season has been slow in the Pfalz this year; the slowest Jonas has seen, "It scares you as a farmer, you don't know how to act. Some shoots are only at 3cm and others are at 15cm. It makes it really hard to make decisions."

2020 was by contrast, incredibly convenient. The growing season was paced nicely, speedy but not so fast that the brothers were rushed. Jonas feels like their energy going into harvest has really paid off in the wines:  "What I believe is: that spirit you're in on the approach to, and during harvest contributes the most to the wines, and we had an amazing team. If we have good food, good energy, a good vibe, then we're all in a good state of mind, especially my brother & I, it really helps the wines."

Whilst up in the Portugieser vineyards, trying to spray into the wind against powdery & downy mildew, Jonas discussed two of the new arrivals picked from these plots, Wild Rosé 2019 and the Brand Rot 2020:

“Portugieser grows super nicely, it's very healthy- but the deer love it. They love to snack on the shoots, that's the biggest problem in a farming sense. So we get good yields mostly, and the quality is great. But as a varietal, it's really high in PH, so in the cellar it's more complicated. It's hard to make no sulphur natural wines with it, so we have to be careful. 

“Wildrosé is one of my favourite wines of ours, but it's never the easiest to make for this reason. The 2016 & 2017 got mousy pretty fast, and we realised they just need time. It changes so much after half a year, the mouse was completely gone in the 16 & 17 after 6 months. So for this wine we always give it half a year or more once bottled, and it's so fresh and stable.

“Each variety we work in a specific way, so we pick all the Portugieser and process it in one go. They get a very vigorous foot stomp, sit on the skins for two or three days before pressing, and then we split it up in the end: we fill a very large 100 year old barrel, and a couple of smaller 10 year old barrels, for Wildrosé. The juice that's left goes to tank for the Brand Rot. 

“So the Nouveau, or... not-nouveau by the time we release it, has this foot stomped Portugieser, and a little carbonic maceration Cab Franc to make up about 15% of the blend. We have a little plot here, and we love the variety, it gets ripe, but not over-ripe. We use the carbonic to bring that fresh fruity vibe and lose some greener notes, it works really nicely with Portugieser. We'll also keep a few barrels from other vintages of Cab Franc, we taste them as we're making up the blend, and some of those might go in also.

“We bottle in November, and we used to release it like a Nouveau, but it does need time, so now we wait. But it makes sense for us because this is another one to drink in the park, with your friends, with a little chill. It's a much nicer time of year for this wine! 

"I've never seen so much wind in one year! This was my first attempt spraying this year, I was trying to use the gaps where there was no wind. Every day for the last two months has just been wind, wind, wind."

As Jonas abandoned spraying in a gale (his aim is to use tiny doses of copper (1oz p/ha), a tactic not suited to anything other than pretty still conditions) he drove back home, showing us the new plot at the top of the hill where they'll be planting Portugieser on limestone. 

“We have just under 2 hectares of Portugieser, but we love the Wildrosé and the Brand Rot and we really want to make more of them. So we're planting more, and we just bought a new Portugieser vineyard. We're going hard on the Portugieser! These are both wines that everyone deserves to drink, we want to make sure we have enough to go around.”

JUST LANDED

SPARKLING

2019 - Landwein - Pet Nat - Silvaner, Pinot Blanc

WHITE

2019 - Kabinett, Trocken - Stein & Fels - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur (Magnum Only) - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Pinot Blanc Pur - Pinot Blanc

ROSE

2019 - Landwein - Wild Rosé - Portugieser

RED
2020 - Landwein - Brand Red - Portugieser

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Daniel, Jonas & ‘Birkenstock Man’

A Chat with the Brand Brothers

Germany, Pfalz, Bockenheim
 

Our chat with Daniel & Jonas (May 2020):

How have things been going for you over the last few months?
To be honest, the pandemic hasn’t affected us massively in our daily lives. We are so engulfed in our work in the vineyard. It was nice for Jonas to be able to slow down as well as he was gone most of last year. 
We were also lucky in a sense that most of our workers, who come mainly from either Germany or Romania, stayed around during the lockdown here with us. 
We’ve enjoyed using this time to slow down and really take care of the vineyards.

What happened business wise is that as soon as the lockdown started most of the wholesale orders got cancelled. This was right at the beginning and if you would have talked to me then, I would definitely not be in such a good mood. 
What happened then was that we adapted and did deliveries to private customers instead. People were stuck at home but they still wanted wine! So from then on it went uphill. But overall I think we were making about 50-60% of our usual profits, which was better than expected. Now things are looking better again and we have picked up another 20%. 

We are relying heavily on our importers and we think everyone has done a great job to adapt themselves to the situation.

Also it was interesting to see how the online wine business has developed in Germany during this time. It was rather slow before and it has really picked up speed. A lot more people seem to be interested in natural wines, which is great. I put it down to everyone being bored at home and willing to try out new things, rather than going out in groups and picking a “regular” wine which is more likely to please everyone.

What has Jonas been up to?
We’ve had quite a lot of requests for online tastings and vineyard tours, as well as live chats, so he’s been keeping up with that as well besides the work on the vineyard. 
I think digitally we’ve developed at a massive rate over the last three months. We’ve probably done as much as we would have in two years.

Are there any special projects you are working on at the moment? 
We are currently experimenting with some old vines where we are creating a sort of hybrid by connecting them to young, new vines. More on this to come!

We are also putting in a lot of effort in creating a really flourishing polyculture around our vines. We will be planting some lavender as well as trees and even vegetables, to create a balance so eventually the vineyard sustains itself. 


And how has it been climate wise for you so far?
Really good, we were lucky to avoid the frost this year. We’ve also had a really wet winter so the soils should have plenty of water reserves for summer. We’ll wait and see how it’s gonna go! 


 

Now in Stock

SPARKLING

NEW  2019 White Pet Nat - Silvaner, Pinot Blanc


WHITE

2018 Riesling Vom Berg - Riesling

NEW 2019 Wilder Satz
Grape varieties for 2019 are: Müller Thurgau 38%, Riesling 7%, Kerner 8%, Silvaner 8%, Chardonnay
18%, Weissburgunder 18%, Grauburgunder 3%. Müller Thurgau fermented in stainless steel with an addition of a tea brew inside the tank as well as Riesling grapes (maceration carbonique). Riesling 24h maceration, Kerner from 2018 was macerated for 10 days and 2019 which was also fermented tea-bag-style with Riesling. Silvaner, Chard, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris were short macerated overnight.

2018 Müller Thurgau Pur - Muller Thurgau

2018 Pinot Blanc Holy Chapel - Pinot Blanc

2018 Riesling Monastery - Riesling

RED

NEW  2019 Brand Red - Portugieser

WHOLESALE ONLY

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