Release The Bats! Fledermausen have Landed

2NATURKINDER

Michael & Melanie Voelker
Germany, Franconia, Kitzengen

Things are looking cautiously optimistic over at 2Naturkinder. A good year is well-needed after their 2020, and one could be on the cards. 

After the late frost event of last year, this has been the slowest start to a season since Melanie & Michael Voelker returned to Kitzingen nearly a decade ago.
Buds finally broke towards the end of April, although the lack of rain received thus far does spell another drought for summer.

We're already past the date on which frost wiped out 80% of the 2020 yields (May 12th) and historically, May 15th is the last date of the season a major frost can be expected. Never say never, but our fingers are crossed for the Voelkers this year. 

We've just received a handful of the triumphant 2019's from Melanie & Michael, the year in which they learnt to handle the drought that is becoming a regular fixture in Central Europe.

We caught up with Michael in early April before bud break as he finished hammering their last post into a new 1 hectare vineyard. 1000 posts and 25km of wire required to build a trellising frame for the young plants!

Is there any impact to the vines after a major frost event like you saw last year?

”Potentially, it depends what you did to the vine a little bit. The whole bud break process comes from the plants reserves: it doesn't have leaves yet so the engine isn't really running - no photosynthesis - so it uses that reserve for the fist bud break. When you have frost it needs to do that again, so it depletes even more of its reserves. 

”It's going to be interesting to see, but we do try to not push them too hard. I hope it's going to be alright, there will be an impact for sure. Not all the plants have the nice strong canes that they normally would have had, which makes it tricky to prune. But we'll see if we've reacted well!

”Another thing we've had is not enough rain so far. If it's not gonna be a rainy April then we need to plan for another dry summer. So the next drought is almost certainly ahead. We've started getting used to that. It just means you have to be a bit more moderate with yields which are relatively low here already. It's not our first, so we are learning to adapt. 
It can lead to fermentation problems if you don't manage it well because you can have a lack of amino acids in the juice. That was a huge lesson in 2018 for a lot of European growers when we had the first big drought. “

Could you tell us a little bit about the 2019 Fledermaus Weiss & Fledermaus Rot that have just landed?

”I actually tried the 2016 and 2017 vintages a couple of days ago and they were quite funky! Depending on your definition of funkiness I suppose. They're not really my favourite vintages. 2018 was super clean and precise, like 2015. One of the reasons being that I reduced the quantity and sorted out a few batches that I didn't fully trust, saved them in reserve for the Vater blend which we allow a little sulphur to be added to if needed. I don't want to add any sulphur to Fledermaus.

”So now the Fledermaus is just three batches: our favourite big barrel of Muller Thurgau, a medium sized barrel of Sylvaner and a small tank of Riesling. 2019 is a very similar blend to 2018, Melanie says it's even better but I struggled to compare them!

”The Sylvaner has a little skin-contact overnight before we press. The challenge with Sylvaner is it's a very pectine-heavy flesh, so you have to press long and hard if you do direct. If you give it a little more time you get the natural enzymes populating the must, and then it's a little easier to press. It gives it a different fruitiness to a hard direct press. 

”The red one, like always is a single vineyard Pinot Meunier. 2019 were mostly very healthy grapes, just with a little bit of heat damage so it was a low yield. Just one 1200 litre tank for almost 8000 square metres!

”They were hand de-stemmed on boards like the Jura, and left in boxes for a week of semi carbonic maceration before pressing. That's always just finished in a tank.”

How is the bat conservation project going?

”The bats are if anything, in decline. We still get our guano, it will keep going into the vineyard. But in general they're going down in the area. We just have super small colonies in the area, but tiny families of like 15 different species. But they don't live in big colonies, they're in smaller groups. 

”Where we get our guano from though, you can see a continuous drop in numbers because they're just less food for them. Fewer insects to eat. The whole bat thing; when you support that species you're supporting a whole ecosystem. The bats can only thrive if there's enough caterpillars, the caterpillars can only survive if there's enough butterflies reproducing. They're really an indicator of an ecosystem. It's quite sad really.

”They're certainly around though; a week ago I was terrified, working late down here in the winery. I walked back up to our house and there was a huge bat that surprised me in the office. I tried for 2 hours to help him out but it didn't want to leave. I had to just leave the window open and hope for the best!

”I really do like the guano as a fertiliser, especially for that vineyard where it's incredibly tricky to get compost in. Pinot Meunier & Muller Thurgau need more of a nitrogen supply than other varieties; that was definitely something I learnt as I stopped tilling in 2016.

”Some varieties don't really care about that, there's enough nitrogen they can access. But Pinot Meunier, Muller Thurgau & Domina don't handle that too well. They need more nitrogen supply and that's tricky without tilling. That lack of nitrogen is something that can cause instability, mousiness risks. So they get fed batshit!”

JUST LANDED

WHITE

2019 - Landwein - Vater & Sohn - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Bacchus
2018 - Landwein - Fledermaus Weiss - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Riesling

SKINS

2018 - Landwein - Weinschwärmer - Pinot Gris, Riesling

ROSE

2019 - Landwein - Black Betty - Domina

RED

2019 - Landwein - Fledermaus Rot - Pinot Meunier
2017 - Landwein - Spatburgunder - Pinot Noir

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Every Grape Counts! 2Naturkinder 2020

2NATURKINDER

Michael & Melanie Voelker
Germany, Franconia, Kitzengen

Michael & Melanie Voelker suffered monumental losses to their crop when frost hit on the night of May 15th. Usually operating at yields of 35 hectolitres per hectare, this year Michael considers himself lucky to even have 15 hl/ha. The once-a-decade frost event means the 2020 releases from Kitzingen will be scarce. Nevertheless we have just received a brace of new wines from the Voelkers including two new cuvees, cause for celebration in the face of upcoming adversity.

We spoke to Michael in late October to discuss the new wines, and were surprised to find harvest was not quite finished:

Good afternoon Michael, how are you going?

I’m alright, it’s calming down slowly. It’s actually our last pick tomorrow. We’re picking second generation Riesling. The frost wiped out the first generation buds; but they do have a second generation - sometimes a third - as a backup. Normally we would have picked this vineyard in late September! The backup-buds broke after the night of frost, and some produced a serious amount of grapes. The Heimat Silvaner will just be enough for one barrique, the Pinots will be at least a few hundred litres. It will be interesting to see how these ferments go...

One more day, the end is in sight! Could you tell us about the two new wines we’ll be receiving this week?

2018 Weinschwärmer
It's a blend of two wines. The two varieties share one special vineyard: on Eselsberg, the hill where the Heimat Silvaner and the Fledermaus grow, there is a hectare with two thirds Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) and one third Riesling. That was my Dad’s favourite vineyard, and was the last one that we were still making wine for his portfolio with, before he retired. I didn’t want to take this one off him until he was ready.

The two varieties ripen at different times, so we don’t pick them together. We fermented them separately. The Pinot Gris is skin fermented for 10 days, the Riesling is a direct press, to bring that razor sharp acidity. I've played with those two for a couple of years, trying to find the right blend; this was the blend Melanie approved of. It’s dedicated to the Weinschwärmer: the brightly coloured moths that live in the area; a delicacy for our bats!


2019 Vater & Sohn
Believe it or not it took me half a year to find the right blend for this one. This is a blend from 12 initial wines - I left a couple out that didn’t work well with the wine in the end- we have about 10 here. I get the wines on the table, try to find the best possible mix. From 10 wines; if you make a mix of 5 different ratios, you need to wait a week really until you can judge the result properly, the wines have to react to one another. Melanie will have a smell - shake her head- so then: we try the next version next weekend! For half a year until we find the right one!
Fortunately or not, that’s not a problem we’ll have this year, with such little wine everything has to work out. But, everything has worked out so far, given the small quantities. If we had this x3, 2020 would have been a breathtaking vintage.

So the frost was as bad as I’ve heard?

I was glad I got anything at all. One of the guys I regularly get grapes from was also completely destroyed too. Thankfully there’s a third guy who I infrequently get a small batch from, he co-runs Demeter in this region, teaches organic farming. I’ve helped him out with sheep in the past. As he’s a teacher he doesn’t need all of his grapes so I was able to have 10 of his vineyards to pick this year. That kind of saved our ass, otherwise it would’ve just been a few thousand litres which is… not enough.

My Dad was saying I have to expect a frost like this every 10 years, though it's certainly getting more dangerous with the vegetation season starting earlier and earlier with climate change- which is a clear pattern. If you have an earlier bud break then the period of time between bud break and the last night of frost that you can expect- mid May - that period gets longer and longer. And that makes it just more likely that you get an event of frost hitting the plants. So it won't have been the last time, but I'd be quite happy if it was the last time for the next couple of years. I'm happy to just deal with the drought for a while, because that's not going to go away, not in our lifetime.

That’s becoming a frequent occurrence?

It was the 3rd year of drought in a row. We’re getting used to it, that's our job as farmers- to adapt to that. 2018 was the first Europe-wide drought that we had, with quite a few producers having fermentation problems for the first time in their lives. Because we had a fairly humid - great, vegetation wise - Spring in 2018, we had a lot of fruit on the grapevines. Everybody was like “Yay, jackpot!” And then it just stopped raining. The result was that there was not enough nitrogen available for the plants, because when the soil is dry, roots don’t have the water they need to transport stuff. Ions won't move in a completely dry environment.

So then we ended up having not enough amino acids in some of the juice and that leads to fermentation problems. In 2019 we adapted to that. I just reduced the yields when I noticed it was going in a similar direction. And that worked out certainly, but this year there was so little left on the vines (after the frost) that for us it didn’t really make a difference: if you only have two bunches per plant, whatever water you get is gonna be enough.

Beyond the up-front losses; has 2020 put paid to any future plans for the time being?

The vineyard that used to produce Black Betty, we call our garden vineyard - we have a garden at the bottom that’s become a bit of a biotope- I’ve pulled up the Domina in 2017 and planted a traditional mix of about 20 varieties. Everything was a co-plantation back in the past; that was an insurance for the producer, if one variety didn't perform well one year, then maybe the others would. But every region has a unique composition of varieties. I planted the composition that is supposed to have been the typical one in this area. It was supposed to give us grapes for the first time this year but the frost saw to that. We went through though, picked two buckets. Literally. Every grape counts!

I planted another hectare this year, about half of the plot is planted with a mix of six different hybrids, so it’s supposed to become a field blend. The other half is now home to an once thought extinct member of the Pinot family. It ripens two weeks after Pinot Noir, with smaller berries and thicker skins. The German name is “Fränkischer Burgunder”. That plot and the garden vineyard will both take another four or five years before being bottled as a single vineyard expression.

NOW IN STOCK

WHITE

2019 - Vater & Sohn - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Bacchus
Bottled in August 2020.

2018 - Weinschwärmer - Pinot Gris, Riesling
The two batches were blended in April 2019 into two barrels and were bottled as Weinschwärmer in March 2020.

SKIN MACERATED

2017 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner
40-year old Silvaner vineyard, grown on the steepest point of the hill on meager Keuper soil. Loads of sun, hard to farm. 2/3 of the grapes were fermented on the skins for a week, the rest was pressed after two nights of skin-contact. Aging in 60-year old oak. The wines came together in summer 2019 and remained in a tank until bottling in March 2020.

2016 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner
In ‘16, about 50% of the grapes were fermented on the skins for ten days the rest was pressed after a night of skin-contact. Aged in 60-year old oak, the wines were blended in spring 2018,bottled in July 2018.

2018 Heimat Silvaner - Silvaner
35 year old vines, farmed organically for more than 20 years.
The destemmed grapes always ferment quickly. After pressing the wine went into a 600l barrel, a barrique and a tank before it got racked & blended into a relatively new 1200l barrel in summer 2019 (so it comes with a gentle kiss from Franconian oak).

RED

2018 - Spätburgunder - Pinot Noir
After two trickier vintages 2018 was very satisfying. Fantastic grapes and a higher quantity than the years before. Racked and blended into a bigger barrel in summer 2019 before being bottled in March 2020.

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OUR MARCOS AS HUMAN LADDER TO FETCH MIRABELLE PLUMS

Introducing...Andi Weigand!

Andi Weigand

Germany, Bavaria, Iphofen
 

Andi Weigand is part of the new wave of "college-escapee" winemakers sweeping Germany, overturning old expectations of his homeland's wine, but with a definite sense of place.

We were introduced by 2Naturkinder : being practically neighbours, they share ideas (and joint custody of Nick Hanel) in the vineyards. The second generation of his family to make wine, Andi was inspired by visits to natural winemakers with his college mates.

Vineyards are mostly on or around the Iphöfer Kronsberg, a hill which rises precipitously from the plain below. Unique Keuper soils give the wines power without high alcohol. Andi works on the sides or lower down the hill to achieve more subtlety in his wines compared to other area producers, whose steep south-facing slopes now receive much more sunshine – perhaps climate-change induced.

Mixing tradition with progress Andi uses an 80-year-old basket press and vinifies in large German oak. He also experiments with maceration in qvevri.

His cuvees have just landed - we've had a chat:

"My dad was the first in our family to start making wines, and I took over in 2015. We converted to organic winemaking with the first natural vintage coming out in 2018. I am really lucky to have parents who are open-minded enough and had confidence in the future of natural wines, as most people around here were still more inclined towards commercial wines. But they acknowledged my passion and drive and let me go ahead with it, and we are all pretty happy with the results. 

"Today, my dad and I work together: I am the head behind the production and he works in the background and let’s me lead the way.

“I am happy to have good friends in the industry such as 2Naturkinder and the Brand Brothers - we all help and motivate each other. It's great to be part of this group as we all grow together.

"Right now, there is a clear natural winemaking trend happening in Germany. People are turning away from commercially made products full of pesticides. I am happy to have good friends in the industry such as 2Naturkinder and the Brand Brothers - we all help and motivate each other. It's great to be part of this group as we all grow together.

"Talking about the vintages you have received, 2019, just like 2018, have been really hot years for us. In 2019 the harvest was rather small due to little water reserves, but of incredibly good quality. Probably the best one we've ever had. I am happy with the alcohol percentage which is 12%. Less than that I find them too edgy, more than that too boozy.

“For the whites: The grapes went initially through our 100-year-old direct press (we've got a cellar which is dating back to the 1600's). The juice then goes into wooden barrels housed there for about nine months. Then we bottle them up. Maybe it doesn't sound very spectacular but it is just my way of making wines: I want them to be fresh, reviving and I want the process to be clean and errorless. 

"As for the Skin 2019, this is a special one for us; skin-contact Silvaner from 40-year-old vines. We destemmed 50% of the grapes by hand to get totally healthy berries, and to keep the fruit intact. The other 50% we kept whole bunch, and added both whole-bunch clusters and destemmed berried to qvevri & amphora for 9 months. After, they were pressed, and bottled. It's fantastic to see how fresh & juicy a wine can still be even after 9 months on skins! 

"At the moment I am quite happy with the development of our vineyard. We are paying great attention to the care of the old vines, which if maintained well, can flourish for another 60 years. The next future project would be making wines biodynamically - we have already started making first steps in this direction!"

Now in Stock

WHITE

NEW 2019 White - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Scheurebe, Bacchus

NEW 2019 MTH - Muller Thurgau

NEW 2019 Silvaner - Silvaner

SKIN

NEW 2019 Skin - Silvaner

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A Chat with 2Naturkinder

2Naturkinder

Germany, Franconia, Kitzingen

Micheal Voelker and Melanie Drese spent many years working in other fields, traveling the world and living in Heidelberg, Regensburg, London, and New York. In 2013 they returned to Bavarian Germany to begin taking over Michael’s father’s winery in Kitzingen. They began to make natural wines under the 2Naturkinder label as a side project for the winery, and in 2019 have fully expanded the project to take over the winery’s production. 

We've had a chat with Melanie:

How did the transition away from conventional winemaking go for you, since Michael's parents retired?
The winery which used to employ more than 40 people in the 1960s has shrunk to Michael and me. After six to seven years since we started this is a new beginning for us, a new structure. We have gone through loads of unexpected events which have really tested us such as broken machinery and staff drop-outs. We are still working through the transition but I think we will be able to find our balance in the coming few months. 
One of the biggest challenges will be the upkeep of the big estate, with a smaller wine production. 

How was last year's harvest for you?
Quite difficult. It was a very hot year. In addition to that, as 2018 hasn't been great, we could also feel the effect of that in 2019. Loads of dried up grapes, and we've particularly had huge losses of 60% of the Bacchus variety. Something that has never happened before! But, we are hopeful for this year. So far we've had loads of rain, which is great as it builds up water reserves in the soil.

So would you say these are the effects of climate change?
Absolutely. That's one of the reasons we have said that if we plant new vineyards, we will predominantly plant traditional grape varieties which can withstand the heat more.
We are actually about to take over two additional vineyards this year which will be newly planted. The first one this spring. As part of that, we will also be planting loads of trees in collaboration with the Landesbund für Vogelschutz , the same organisation we work with to preserve the life of bats in our vineyards. This is in order to counteract against climate change and it will also be really helpful for vines to cope with the heat.

What else is happening for you in 2020?
We will be bottling up a new 2018 Pinot Gris/Riesling blend called Veinschwärmer, which is inspired by an endangered bat species which has been reported roaming the vineyard. Both vineyards are right next to each other, but the Riesling has been planted a bit later so it is the younger one out of those two. For us, the variety didn’t work very well by itself and after experimenting with it for two to three years, we've had the idea to mix both varieties and Veinschwärmer is the end result!

Also, there is an idea of holding workshops on our estate, which isn't official yet. The workshops would be around natural wine, food, foraging – exploring different topics in general. As we are getting contacted often by people from all over the world who want to come see us and we've also got plenty of space on the estate, we would like to use it in creative ways. Getting like-minded people together sounded like a nice plan! More info to be released soon!

In general we are trying to travel less as there is just so much to do here, but this isn't really possible. Next we will be going to Lissabon as well as New York as the US is offering huge opportunities for the natural wine market.

As Michael said, in 2020 we don’t want to grow our business in terms of revenue or popularity. It’s about being content, implementing a better working structure, achieving a balance and accepting that things take time.

Now in Stock

Sparkling

2018 Bacchus Pet Nat - Bacchus
Crushed and pressed in a pneumatic press. "Noticing the benefit of blending fresh juice with a good splash of wine from the previous year we mixed Bacchus juice from the first harvest day with the same amount of a finished wine from 2017. And that’s why there is no vintage on the label this time. 2018 was the best Bacchus year we’ve ever had so 100% beautiful grapes were crushed and fermented on the skins for four days before being pressed and blended with a wine from 2017 (a blend of Bacchus and a bit of Silvaner). Bottling took place another three days after end of August. Warmly disgorged by hand in March 2019."

White

2018 V&S - Muller Thurgau
Malolactic fermentation and aged in fiberglass. "A super early vintage for almost everything including this Müller-Thurgau harvested in August 2018. Destemmed and pressed the juice fermented in a fiberglass plastic tank and was racked just two days before bottling."

Orange 

2018 Drei Freunde - Bacchus, Muller-Thurgau, Silvaner
"The top three planted varieties in Franken are Bacchus, Müller-Thurgau and Silvaner. Kind of logical playing with a blend. The previous vintages have been reflecting the growing conditions of each season and so does this one. 2018 was the best Bacchus year we’ve ever seen so there was a lot and it was perfectly healthy.
The three wines going into the blend were fermented and aged separately but similarly: semi-carbonic maceration for a week (whole bunches included only for the Bacchus), pressed and fermented & aged in steel (Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau) and one big old oak barrel (Bacchus)."

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