Monzinger Halenberg
Blue slate
Poor, stony, steep. The dark slate heats up in the sun and holds on to the warmth. The result: Rieslings with smoke, salt and lots of tension.
IIA year in the vineyard
From pruning to the cellar
Take your time scrolling: with every chapter, the season changes in the vineyard.
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January · February
Pruning
When frost covers the Halenberg in the morning, we’re out with our pruning shears. Each vine keeps a single cane; everything else goes. Fewer grapes, more character – about 40,000 vines, every cut by hand.
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March · May
Bud break
First the vines “weep” sap, then the first woolly buds push out of the wood. Now we check the thermometer every evening: until mid-May, a single night of frost can cost us the young shoots.
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June · August
Summer on the slope
The vines flower in June – tiny blossoms with a delicate scent. Then it’s all canopy work: tucking shoots and thinning leaves so air reaches the grapes. The slate soaks up the day’s heat and gives it back to the vines at night.
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September · October
Harvest
We pick by hand only, into small crates, often in several passes per parcel. Within an hour, the grapes are in the press. Everyone who helps gets Federweißer (fresh, fizzy new wine) and onion tart.
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November · December
In the rock cellar
Our cellar was carved straight into the porphyry around 1890: about 54 °F (12 °C) all year round. The juice ferments with wild yeasts, in steel tanks and old 1,200-liter oak casks. The Rieslings rest on their fine lees until spring – you can taste the patience.