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’

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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Supporting Our Growers With Otros Vinos

To be a winemaker above all else is to be a farmer, and with the pressures of climate change it's increasingly becoming a riskier and more difficult game to play. Last year was devastating for a few of our favourite producers and to help them out, alongside our friend Fernando of Otros Vinos, we're running a month long promotion with a hefty discount on their wines.

In the Mediterranean, an unseasonably warm winter was followed by an extremely rainy spring and summer, and significant damage by mildew was followed by further damage due to oidium.

Two of Fernando's producers, Clot de les Soleres (Penedès) and L'eau du Nenuphar (Roussillon) both lost 100% of their production and weren't able to produce a single bottle of their 2020 vintage. Meanwhile in Germany devastation struck in one night, the 2Naturkinder vineyards were hit incredibly hard.

From 11th January to the 10th February, between us we are offering our trade customers a 15% discount on all of the wines from these three producers who suffered terribly last year. All we ask in return is that you push these wines as hard as you can. Promote them to your customers, shout about them on social media, by carrier pigeon, smoke signals or by whatever means capable of you... get these wines into people's hands.

When Michael Voelker woke on the morning of May 12th 2020, and stepped into the fresh bite of a morning frost to read the temperature in his yard, he knew something was wrong. It took him the entire day to tour his vineyards inspecting just how bad the damage was. In one night, a once-a-decade frost event had wiped out over 80% of their yield.

Michael's Dad- now retired- had worked the vines on these hills for decades and had told Michael to prepare himself for a frost event like this once every ten years or so, but there is little one can do to adapt in the face of such a climatic catastrophe.

Michael certainly acknowledges that his role is primarily that of a farmer, and as such "it's our job to adapt to changing climate patterns. We're getting used to the drought for instance, this was our 3rd in a row. We've learnt how to adapt."

Whilst it's unlikely the area will be hit quite this hard again anytime soon, Michael is worried that the changing vegetation season impacted by climate change could lead to further devastation.

"If you have like an earlier bud break then the period of time between outbreak and the last night of frost that you can expect: mid-May, that period of danger gets longer and longer. It's a clear pattern we're facing thanks to climate change. Not the frost, but the greater danger these frosts now pose to the buds"

We'd love for you to get involved. If you're willing, please promote these hardworking producers, celebrate their wines and simply get more people drinking them. Ultimately this will mean money in their bank accounts and a buffer to what has been quite simply a dire year.

As Michael said of the day he tended to his withered vines:

"It’s a strange feeling knowing that the impact of this event won’t become tangible before the end of next year when part of the 2020 vintage was supposed to be bottled and shipped. It’s like watching a car driving against a wall in slow-motion and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Thanks in advance for any support you can bring to these hardworking growers. Please do get in touch with Otros Vinos to stock up on some wines from Clot de les Soleres and L'eau du Nenuphar.

NOW IN STOCK FROM 2NATURKINDER

Available at 15% off until February 10th.

2019 - Silvaner Pet Nat - Silvaner

2019 - Vater & Sohn - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Bacchus

2018 - Fledermaus Weiss - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner

2016 - Spatburgunder - Pinot Noir

2017 - Spatburgunder - Pinot Noir

2018 - Spatburgunder - Pinot Noir

2018 - Drei Freunde - Bacchus, Muller-Thurgau, Silvaner

2018 - Kleine Heimat Silvaner - Silvaner

2018 - Weinschwärmer - Pinot Gris, Riesling

2016 - Heimat Silvaner - Silvaner

2018 - Heimat Silvaner - Silvaner

2015 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner

2016 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner

2017 - Wilde Heimat - Silvaner

For wholesale price lists please email hello@winesutb.com

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.

WHOLESALE ONLY

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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

WHOLESALE ONLY

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