Harvest 2024: Vineyard Update
A natural catastrophe struck parts of eastern Europe and eastern Austria in recent weeks. Day after day of heavy rain led to strong rises in river levels and massive flooding throughout all of Lower Austria. The epicenter of the crisis was Waldviertel, Kamptal, and the regions around the Danube and its tributaries. Thanks to early weather predictions and flooding protection measures, Wachau was largely spared the worst of the water’s damage. Heavy rain, storms, and street closings meant that every day of the ongoing harvest required an up-to-the-minute re-evaluation of conditions.
As surprising as it may sound, we believe this will be an outstanding vintage. While excess water can threaten to over-saturate the grapes and cause them to burst, we don’t currently see this as an issue. This is especially true for Grüner Veltliner, although the Riesling will likely need special attention in the coming weeks through hand selection to sort out affected grapes. The long, hot, and dry summer produced relatively loose clusters and fruit with thick skins. The vineyards themselves absorbed the water well, especially our steep terraces and hillside sites such as Axpoint, Kreuzberg, and Kirnberg. Those sites all have outstanding drainage, and the soils retained only small amounts of water. Wachau is not known for deep, water-retentive soils, and we harvested most of those — typically located near the Danube — quickly after the heavy rains. Unlike many other regions, Wachau’s vineyards can almost always be entered even after heavy rains. Thanks to our structure, built around our vignerons, we could work very nimbly and flexibly during the harvest.
The intensive rain slowed the ripening process, which had been moving quickly in recent weeks, and led the fruit to a stage of development in balance with the season. It also eliminated the need to launch the harvest early to avoid excessive alcohol values. At the time of writing, most of the rest of Austria has concluded its 2024 harvest. Many top Rieds (single vineyards) in the vicinity of the Danube still have fruit hanging, and for us in Wachau the majority of the work bringing in the fruit still lies ahead. We see a late — but not overly late — harvest as a major benefit for the work of our vignerons in the steep terraces. The extended hang times with cool nights (precisely the conditions at present) are enormously important for deep and developed aromas.
Harvest conditions are ideal right now, with cool nights and dry, sunny days. A few scattered periods of rain are predicted, but these are unlikely to cause problems of note. We anticipate that harvest will take another three weeks. The heavy rains did cause numerous stone terraces throughout Wachau to collapse. Rebuilding them is a project for winter, however.
While the fruit is currently quite healthy, we are predicting a very small harvest. This traces back to the frost situation in spring. Some sections of Wachau, especially on the right bank, in parts of the Spitzer Graben, and in individual vineyards in Weissenkirchen, lost as much as 50% of the crop. On the whole, however, we see the 2024 vintage as having the markers of greatness.
