The Dreissigacker wine year

All year round, everything at Weingut Dreissigacker turns on the best possible quality. The focus lies first on the vineyard: soil quality, protecting the vines, reducing yields and finding the right moment to pick. Farming our vineyards biodynamically demands close attention and an understanding of the natural cycle. After the harvest the team's full attention moves to the cellar. The wines are aged without haste, blended and finally bottled. In the Dreissigacker Academy we show how a vintage comes about over the course of the whole wine year.

Over the coming weeks we will give you an insight into the making of the new 2025 vintage. Blending calls for the highest concentration, dedication and attention to detail. In the vineyard our team has been pruning since the start of winter, the groundwork for every vintage to come. Each vine is cut back to a single cane so that it can develop its full vitality. The cut canes stay in the vineyard as mulch and become the basis of our humus, returning to the cycle. Once pruning is finished we tie the vines carefully to give them enough stability for the growing season.

Pruning is not long behind us. The vines were cut back to a single promising cane, which concentrates the entire vitality of the soil in itself and in the grapes that will one day grow on it. Every other shoot was removed without exception. After countless deliberate cuts, tying the vines comes next.

So that the fruit and the canopy find enough support on the chosen cane, we stabilise it by tying it to the wire frame. To do that it first has to be bent over the wire. Bending calls for a particular measure of experience, skill and feel, qualities every member of the team brings.

In spring they rise from the ground almost unnoticed, hardly more than a thin shoot, and yet they carry the whole potential of a future vintage. For the young plants to take root well, the timing has to be right: the soil should be loose but not too wet, ready to take the delicate roots. The vines are set carefully into prepared furrows, and the earth is then drawn protectively around them.

The spacing between the plants matters just as much. Planted closer together, they compete more for nutrients and send their roots deeper into the soil. That strengthens their resilience and lays the groundwork for long-lived wines of strong character.

A healthy ecosystem draws strength from itself and keeps and strengthens its own health. We believe in the principles of biodynamics and therefore do not intervene invasively in natural processes in our vineyards. Even so, a gentle steering in the right direction is needed now and then, or in the wrong one. That, at least, is how we handle the pests our vines need protecting from. To spare the plants greater damage from the grape berry moth, we place pheromone dispensers that give off the scent of the female moth. Only the pest loses its bearings; beneficial insects and the wider ecosystem are untouched. We use nature's own means to protect it, closing another biodynamic circle.

Fertile soil is the basis for healthy, well-growing plants and a high-quality harvest. Fertilising is largely what determines soil health, and it carries enormous weight at Weingut Dreissigacker. Here too we hold without compromise to biodynamics and to farming close to nature, which is why we make our own fertiliser. It consists of equal thirds of cow manure, mulch and green cuttings. We set it up every October, compost it for around eight to ten weeks at no more than 70 degrees and then leave it to rest covered. In the first weeks of April the team spreads it across the vineyards, where it is worked into the soil immediately so that the micro-organisms essential to soil biodiversity are shielded from UV light and can carry on working. Farming our vineyards by hand and sustainably is the foundation of how we understand natural and biodynamic viticulture. Fertilising in April gives us healthy soil life and the best conditions for the coming vintage.

As the days and above all the nights grow warmer, the vines break bud. To obtain the best possible fruit and to protect the plants from disease by natural means, yields are reduced and dense growth is prevented. Reducing yield means removing double shoots so that a single shoot grows from each bud, which avoids competition for nutrients. Fewer shoots mean fewer bunches, but of higher quality. Shoots growing at an angle are also removed to keep the canopy growing upright.

Tucking is one of the recurring, structuring tasks in the vineyard. Every eight to ten days we work through every single vine, until the canopy has closed completely towards the end of June. The vine grows vigorously towards the light. Our task is to accompany that growth and give it form. Using catch wires we shape an upright, even canopy.

The young shoots are gathered gently, fixed in place and guided again and again. What is put in order now pays off later: an open structure means more air and more light, and creates the best conditions for healthy, high-quality fruit.

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