Spring Makes Me Nervous
Le Austrian Wine Pop-Up is Open for Pouring
I’m sending the first newsletter of 2025 as I return from a 2,800 km (1,700 miles) road-trip from Vienna to Paris back to Vienna after dropping off 500 bottles of Austrian wine.
Selling Out!
By mid-December all of the bottles will be shipped from the cellar into the hands of wine drinkers around the world including Austria, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, South Africa and the USA — pretty cool.
Wasps Attack and First Bottling
The big highlight is that we have bottled the 2023 vintage. Whew!
Thesis Grade and Reserve Your 2023 Bottle
Fast forward to 18 June 2024 and in a flash it’s over. Last week I successfully defended my thesis titled “Organic Banana Peel Compost as a Sustainable Source of Minerals for Young V. Vinifera”. In brief, my thesis experimentally demonstrated that solid banana peel compost can increase the availability of potassium in soil and increase vine vigor, specifically trunk thickness and shoot length, when compared to the control. Since I uploaded it on ResearchGate last week it already has 176 reads — not bad for a thesis. I hope the results give farmers and vignerons the motivation and confidence to source local fruit peel waste from any fruit and compost it for fertilizer, instead of using soil-killing mined chemical fertilizers.
%#&@$! Vintage 2024
So how is vintage 2024 going so far? It’s a been a %#&@$! (fill in your favorite profanity). First it was the unusual weather patterns. The last week of March vineyard temperatures reached 22°C (72°F) and again a few weeks later in mid-April 26°C (77°F).
First Tasting Notes & Pop-Up Wine Bar
To rectify this atrocity and to launch my first vintage, from 1-28 February 2025 Kapitel Zwei Wine will host a pop-up wine bar in the heart of Paris. Joining us will be 27 other Austrian wineries where we will pour some of the best wines from the country, including red, white, rose, orange and pet nat.
MLF? Gross Lees? What am I talking about?
The first vintage will be a cuvèe of Grüner Veltliner from the talented duo at Weingut Feldtheorie and our own Chenin Blanc. After a little less than two weeks the must underwent spontaneous fermentation in a steel tank and now it’s in amphora where it is undergoing malolactic fermentation or MLF followed by aging on gross lees.
It’s Harvest Time and Big Vintage News!
Kapitel Zwei Wine is partnering with our wonderful friends at Weingut Feldtheorie, Ulrike Filp and Robert Bormuth to produce a white blend with Grüner Veltliner from Weingut Feldtheorie and our Chenin Blanc.
The Big Reveal
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.
Clovers, Steel Tanks, Amphora and Disappointment
Spring has officially arrived in Krems an der Donau, Austria, but if the vines at Kapitel Zwei Wine could talk they would tell you otherwise.
🐄 + 📯 + 💩, Merch! and 🍌🍌🍌
While the vines continue to rest in their dormant state for several more weeks the vineyard has been bustling with human activity.
250 Days Later…
It’s been 250 days since the first hole was dug at Ried Kremsleithen, the plot name of the vineyard in Krems…so where are we now?
Tips from France and Weather Challenges
Dry, drier, desert followed by mist, rain and torrential storm is how I would describe July and August. Not ideal vineyard conditions, but the the French-made vines at Kapitel Zwei Wine seem to be doing just fine.
200 Vines Planted and New Labels
200 vines arrived from France, including 100 Chenin Blanc, 50 Roussanne and 50 Sémillon. I would also like to give you a sneak preview of the new label designs. One little piece of the design is still missing as I wait for the art to be finished, but as we know in agile thinking, better to get feedback during the design process than only at the end.
Aches and Pains
It’s been a harrowing few weeks for us at Kapitel Zwei Wine as we prepare the vineyard for planting — today the vines were shipped from France to Austria 🎉. They were suppose to arrive last week but I delay the shipment a few times due to cold weather. If you can believe it, we had a few centimetres of snow earlier this month, followed by a dry period.
Exams, Pruning and Progress
Today is the first day of the second semester at IMC Krems University, which means I survived the first semester. To the amazement of myself and my tutors I passed algebra with a 74 percent on my final exam. I had less trouble with my other classes averaging a mix of A’s and B’s or as they are known in Austria “sehr gut” and “gut”. This semester I am super excited for “Wine Processing I”, “Viticulture II” and “Wine Tasting and Description II” and less excited about “Macroeconomics”, “Statistics” and “Accounting II”. Wish me luck.
Soil Test, Labels and Varietals
Before the year wraps up I thought I would give you a little update on the latest from Kapitel Zwei Wine with newsletter deux.
Drumroll…My En Primeur Newsletter
Willkommen! This is my first Kapitel Zwei Wine newsletter - a rare collectors item - thank you so much for reading.