Wasps Attack and First Bottling

The big highlight is that we have bottled the 2023 vintage. Whew!

The satisfaction on my face says it all as I push the corks into the 500 ml bottles with my Swiss-made Rapid 54 corker.

Let me share few words about the vintage, which is named “Alibi” (click for the full story behind the name).

Alibi 2023 is a dry, white wine with one gram of sugar per liter. 95 bottles in total were produced — 90% Grüner Veltliner and 10% Chenin Blanc. The Grüner Veltliner was purchased from my friends at Weingut Feldtheorie and the Chenin Blanc is from Kapitel Zwei. Since the Chenin vines were only planted in May 2022 they are still young, with little yield. It will take another five years before they are mature.

While they are not certified, all of the grapes are 100% organic. They were handpicked on 10 October 2023 and spontaneous fermentation (fermentation with indigenous yeast) was completed after 10 days, followed by the malolactic fermentation (MLF) in amphora. MLF reduces the acidity of the wine, giving it a yeasty, brioche aroma and taste. The wine was aged in amphora on the gross lees (dead yeast cells) for 10 months.

I also refer to Alibi as a low intervention wine. Meaning, Nature was the co-vigneron and it was not filtered, so it may be a little cloudy — the cloudiness comes from the yeast.

Nothing was added to the wine beyond sulphites to keep it stable. Sulphites are a natural byproduct of wine fermentation and Alibi has 46 parts per million (ppm). For comparison, dried fruits can have as much as 3,000 ppm. French fries have more than 1,850 ppm and the legal limit for wine in the United States is 350 ppm (EU is 160 ppm for white wine). So if you are included in the 1% of the world’s population with a sulphite allergy you would sooner get a headache from dried apricots or fries before wine.

For complete transparency I am publishing all of the wine production details and the lab results here - there will be a QR code on every bottle to this page as well (translated into all EU languages)

Special thanks to Marie-Helene, Ulli, Robert and Mathias for all of their time and effort bottling.

Wine Allocation

I also want to thank everyone who pre-registered for a bottle of wine. It’s too hot to ship wine at the moment, so the bottles will stay cool in the cellar for a few months longer. In November I will begin emailing invoices for payment and shipping addresses — therefore, all bottles will be shipped by the end of November.

2024 Challenges Continue

Celebrating the bottling didn’t last long as I had wasps to deal with in the vineyard. The wasps, which are also a problem in Vienna, were draining the sweet berries until they were hollow. The eco-friendly solution was nets and sachets.

These rows of Riesling were netted to keep away the wasps and birds as the grapes ripen. I expect to harvest on 14-15 September.

For the shorter rows of the young Chenin, which also have less clusters than the 25+ year old Riesling, I am testing out these sachets to keep the wasps away.

And the challenges aren’t just faced by me. Several wineries have already started harvesting on 30 August due to the wasps, which is nearly a month earlier than normal. I am planning to harvest in about 1 week. My parents and brother will be flying in from New York to lend a hand.

Now back to the vineyard as I prepare for my first harvest at Kapitel Zwei. The 2024 vintage will not be called Alibi. 😅😂

Cheers, Chris