This moment of a double-rainbow on a dark sky after a long day describes the 2022 vintage in one photo.
After a summer with no rain for 12 weeks, we were nervous and scared. Two weeks before harvest, the grapes lacked juice, energy and life. We were really hoping for rain, while also being afraid of what the rain might bring. And then it came, heavily. In one week it rained more than the whole year before. But the berries were strong. What we thought was the wrong decision during the summer, not opening the soils earlier in the year like our neighbouring colleagues when no rain was in sight, was in the end the right call. No skins bursted. The vines only took in what they needed: juice, nutrients, taste.
And suddenly everything changed. Almost over night the grapes tasted full and concentrated. We hoped we would be able to capture that in the wines later. And to us, 2022 now shows to be the most concentrated vintage so far.
We tried to understand its character in comparison to the three vintages before by describing each vintage with only one word: 2019 tasted exciting, 2020 harmonious,2021 energetic and 2022 is concentrated. That is due to the lack of rain in the summer.
The ratio between berry and juice was so small. We hope for bigger yields someday again, as the last years have not been great in terms of yield, but for now we are happy about this density. 2022 also marks the first year that we made a co-ferment of different fruits in a bigger scale, that is why we called it “the year of the cider” already during harvest. We really like the outcome. It tastes unexpectedly sophisticated in the best way.
This is the fourth vintage of GLOW GLOW. Concentrated, dense, yet vivid.
The 2022 Fizzy is now one of three sparklings. We love bubbles and the Fizzy was the first of the growing fizzy family. It is a blend made of five varieties. Mueller-Thurgau gives structure, Bacchus a floral feel, Scheurebe adds fruit, a tiny portion of Muskateller gives hints of lychee and Riesling provides a great acidity. This year’s Fizzy reminds us a lot of the predecessor. Eventhough the years were very different, there is a constant in the Fizzy. Bottled conviviality and serious fun all over again. The label got a little darker in the yellow glow, as we feel it is a bit more concentrated as the vintage before.
Pink Fizzy grew from a wish that has always been present in our family: Eversince us children can think, our mother and later on our sister always wanted a rose sparkling. So it was about time. Dornfelder and Mueller-Thurgau were pressed together, in Germany we call that a Rotling, which leads to a pink colour. Pink Fizzy is dark pink and it has a seriousness we did not expect to be honest. We researched synonyms for the word seriousness and in a way it has all of this: sincerity, earnestness, gravity, solemnity. There are tannins, fruit, structure, vividness, all in a great harmony. The 2022 Pink Fizzy was a tryout and we like the outcome. It is not really what our mother and sister had in mind back then, but there tastes have changed and so did the ideas for the first pink Baumberger sparkling.
2021 we did a little first experiment with apples, pears, grapes and quinces. The experiment was bottled and called Danke Danke Cider. The 2022 cider is again documenting something we are thankful for, as not all fruits for this cider were our own. They come from friends and coincidental acquaintances. We harvested the apples and pears from an old orchard in the Hunsrück, from our own trees on a field behind the winery and from a befriended farmer’s trees in our village. They were mashed, pressed and directly infused with already fermenting must, so that there is no potential for oxidation. We then added fresh quince juice shortly before bottling as a dosage. The quinces also came from dear ones. This Cider tastes truly sophisticated. It has such a beautiful structure to it. The quinces shine through, the different fruits fuse in a harmonic, voluminous roundness.
The second vintage of Rot and it is even more juicy and joyful than the first one. This cuvée is made of Regent, a fungal-resistant variety
and Dornfelder, a regional classic. Both can make a dark red, but we decided to go for a bright version: 6 days of cold maceration lead to a light colour and mood. This is a cheerful red. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing!” is playing while describing this wine and well, it’s just that: A wine that brings ease. Low alcohol, high fruit. The grapes were harvested just about ripe, destemmed and the juice macerated with the skins for six days at 8°C. At this temperature, there is no fermentation happening, so not a high extraction of tannins, but mostly of the aromatic fruit flavours. People who take themselves very seriously don’t like this wine description, but we do: This wine is lecker (German for delicious), not too serious and we like it.
The 2022 Weiss is pure and clear sunrays, ready to peak through heavy clouds if there were any. It’s all blue skies and bright light, no rain in sight when tasting this. The 2022 summer was warm and dry, so we decided to go for direct pressing of the grapes. No over night skin contact this year as the acidity was already lower than the years before due to the 2022 weather conditions. Two weeks before harvest, we tasted the grapes and felt a lack of juice and life. Just in time, it started raining, heavily. In one week it rained more than the whole year before. And the rain moved all nutrients and aromatics and life into the until then tiny berries. Luckily, the skins were strong and did not burst and they took all good things coming in. Suddenly, there was flavour and energy. So what tastes like sunshine was picked in between heavy rainfalls and with rainbows over our heads and you can feel them in this wine: Mueller-Thurgau, Bacchus & Scheurebe.
2022 is concentrated and strong. The little rain lead to fewer juice in the berries and the extraction is just beautiful. This vintage scared us a bit. All circumstances were very different from 2021. Still we went for the same way of processing the Muskateller grapes: 100% maceration carbonique for ten days. And this is the most exciting Muskateller we ever made. A little bit lower in acidity, but slightly volatile, just the right amount, this wine is deep and lifts you up high. Imagine biting into a ripe peach and drinking icecold herbal tea in the shade of an old tree, while surrounded by sizzling heat. This wine is as romantic and sensual as Elio and Oliver fooling around in a lake somwhere in Ítaly and as innocent as Charlotte singing karaoke, finding herself by getting lost in translation in Tokyo.
This Riesling comes from different parts of one south-facing steep slope. Only a few meters apart from each other, you can find parcels on red sandstone on the Eastern part of the slope and yellow sand on the Western part of the slope. We harvest the grapes separately, however they do become one in this wine. In the last years, the grapes from the Mandeler Schlossberg, the ones growing on yellow sand, were more fruit-driven than the ones growing in the Mandeler Dellchen, from which the juices are very focussed and mineral. In the cellar, we keep the different parts separately. However this year, they do not differ as much as the years before. Both parts are lean and humble, yet vigorous. This is different from the years before and we think this wine has potential to show us various facets over time.
Remember that it was already too cold for the skin maceration part to actually start fermenting on the skins in 2021. In 2022 it did and it brought a substance to the wine that is a beautiful backbone to the elegant carbonic maceration part. This is exactly where we want to go with our Spätburgunder. Mark the 2022 vintage as a benchmark for Baumberger Spätburgunder. We are very excited about this wine and we hope you will be too. Again, we harvested the grapes over a period of two weeks from Mandeler Dellchen. The first three quarters we picked were for the carbonic maceration part and the last quarter was destemmed and fermented on the skins for six days. The cold temperatures did not stop this wine from going its way. All parts were pressed together and fermented in big old wooden barrels of 1200 and 2500 liters.