WINEMAKING

...this is the simple, but yet so important philosophy that Johannes quickly absorbed and applied while growing up on a small family winery in the Mosel Valley. Today, a half a world away, these values and principles are still the foundation of our approach.

Even before vineyards, relationships with our growers come first. After all, they dedicated years to developing and caring for these vineyards, and are the reason these sites have become so desirable.

As the growing cycle begins many months before harvest, nourishing healthy soils, a buzzing environment and flourishing diversity are all essential in contributing to more expressive fruit. The grower is first a gardener and just as he tends and guides vines in the way of the vintage, the winemaker does the same thing by guiding the wine along its transformation from grapes into something you will enjoy in your glass. It’s a long process that requires a deeper understanding, patience and often, a lot of hard, but very rewarding, work.

After months of meticulous farming, at one point it comes down to that final visit: the moment when you decide on the night to pick the fruit. Regardless of how many vintages we’ve seen, it’s always a bit nerve wracking to make that decisive, final call, but part of winemaking is trusting your instinct. When you taste perfectly ripe and bursting berry after berry in the vineyard, it’s time to bring them home. They’ve already had the best foundation and now it’s up to us to let the future wine speak for itself. To get a better feeling for vintage-specific characteristics, it’s imperative to simply be as hands on as possible, watch over the fermentation day after day, giving it time and our fullest attention to develop into something expressive and delicious.

In tune with nature and to further elevate the sense of place, we ferment solely with native yeasts, allow adequate amount of time in small French oak barrels and leave many of the wines unfined and unfiltered. This process requires more knowledge and attention to detail to achieve our desired clarity and purity, but making wine this way is more rewarding and the bottled wine has more soul and vitality. We refine our patience as they develop into pure, site driven and distinct wines with their own attributes and characteristics with both balance and energy.

"We have fallen in love year after year with this fascinating and magical metamorphosis that is small-lot, hands-on winemaking."