Vintage 2013
Weather
Both the 2011 and 2012 had been very hot and dry vintages in Hungary and particularly in our steep, south facing sandy Bazalt vineyards. Ground water levels were low, but in 2013 both February and March were very rainy, and the ground water did recover.
The spring in 2013 were very normal in both temperature and rain, and caused no problems for the wines to start their season. However, in late July and beginning of August the weather turned extreme in our vineyards, with high temperatures and very dry conditions.
Newly done plantation needed to be watered each other week, but older wines in production didn't suffer too much. At the end of August, there were some heavy rains that brought the water balance back. September were cooler than usual, but with normal rain and October was dry and again a bit warmer
Harvest and pressing
The heat wave in July and August was a bit scary, but the autumn were perfect for Villa Sandahl. We could await the grapes to ripen, without having problem with too high alcohol or too low acidity. Also some moderate rainfall was perfect for some really high quality botrytis to develop during October.
We started to harvest Rhine Riesling from Genesis the 17th of October, and ended with picking all grafted wines the 29th of October. At picking time we believed to get between 14 and 15 % alcohol due to our cool fermentation, but it showed at bottling time that alcohol had stayed under 14 %.
Fermentation
The fermentation was slow to start but soon got into ideal speed. To control and repeat such long fermentation, we use the mildest possible Alsatian cultivated yeast, that is barely capable to ferment high sugar into dry wine. We start fermentation at 6 °C and need to rise to 16 °C at end of a 4 month fermentation.
Quality
The 2013 vintage was extremely good for Villa Sandahl, and the little cooler weather matched our vineyards perfectly. A hallmark from this vintage also is that our standard bottlings were of very high quality. It will be exciting to see if the premium level of 2013 will surpass anything else we ever have made.
Already before harvest we decided to separate the fine botrytis into some of the wines, but not into other. From 2010 we learned, that some botrytis in dry wines, like in the 2010 Recept, gets enormously appreciated by everybody on the market, because of the fleshy and broad character botrytis bring to the wine. More experienced consumers may prefer a little more style and elegance, but yet full body, from wines that contains almost no botrytis.
Our standard wine 'All of a Kind' and premium wine 'Count down' contains botrytis, whereas our standard wine 'Gold standard' and premium wine 'Secret' does not. This vintage we certainly have something for everyone.
Assembling
We gradually renovate our vineyards, and thus get more and more grapes from more and more vineyards. 2013 we fermented 8 separate tanks which were assembled down to 4 wines. For the first time we separately fermented Bishop backyard grapes to create another vineyard wine. The four 2013 wines are:
2013 'Gold standard no 5 yellow label' is a blend from:
- Genesis high 2nd fraction
- Bishop backyard 2nd fraction
2013 'All of a kind no 4 white label' is a blend of grapes from:
- Bishops garden
- Genesis low
- Botrytis grapes from Bishop backyard
- 2nd fraction of all grapes pressed together
2013 'Count down no 3 green label' from:
- Genesis low 1st fraction
2013 'Secret no 2 red label' from:
- Bishop backyard 1st fraction
Due to problems with too low sulfur content, durability for some of our 2013 wines has shortened. We have learned the lesson, and this will not happen again.
Labels
In previous 2012 vintage, the market told us it mix up our Microsoft Windows labels, because they were too much alike. As Villa Sandahl always are very market driven, we decided to improve, and make very distinguishable labels for the 2013 vintage. The 2013 labels are now different in four ways:
- The name is different
- The form is different
- The color is different
- The number is different
We hope that our customers appreciate our label improvements, and also have some sense for our crazy humor. (Click on the labels to get high resolution images, .png around 3 M bytes).
'Gold Standard no 5 yellow label'
This label originates from an ancient Swedish 5-crown coin.
Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link from the the QR code at the back label).
'All of a kind no 4 white label'
Four of fours.
Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link from the the QR code at the back label).
'Count down no 3 green label'
This is the typical from the countdown sequence preceding a film show.
Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link from the the QR code at the back label).
'Secret no 2 red label'
This is a letter stamp making the number two in varnish.
Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link from the the QR code at the back label).