Wine Diary
Flowering & Vintages
A wonderfully subtle scent is lingering in our vineyards! We have surpassed mid-June, and our vines have only just started flowering, as in the fine vintages of the 80s (1985, 1986 and 1989). Flowering during the first half of June back then was indeed very rare, limited to very early vintages like 1983 or 1982. Vines blossoming by the end of June or at the beginning of July clearly indicated smaller and “sour” vintages. These days we no longer see late blooming like that, but back then it happened in 1980 and 1984.
We first experienced flowering by the end of May in 2000, and since then this has happened more and more often. In 2018 our vines started blooming by the third week of May! Not only the beginning of flowering, but also its duration and the process itself are important factors of any vintage.
Summer has set in and there is no end in sight to this dry, sunny period. Thus we expect a quick flowering, which will compensate for part of our current “delay”. This in turn means that in 2021, we may hope for another classic vintage with not all too powerful yet fresh and fine wines made of physiologically mature grapes. Please find here a thrilling chart showing the flowering dates of the last 46 years (© Karl Bauer, Krems):
