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Vintage 2016

Weather

The weather during the 2016 vintage season was very good (with a few exceptions):

weathergraph
Consequently, the sugar growth in Riesling was moderate and the acidity got high and was preserved all the way to harvest in October

Harvest

In the autumn Villa Sandahl keeps their grapes as long as possible in the vineyards. Over and over it has shown that some extra weeks in sunny weather makes the difference between a good wine and and excellent one. Only too high sugar or too low acidity can force us to harvest earlier than possible. Typically poor weather finally arrives, and the consequence most often is that our grapes have not been harvested in time, which means that we cause our own problems with bad weather during harvest.

2016 was no exception to this self-inflicted problems, as can be seen in the graph above. The acidity this vintage was higher than sufficient, so the strategy initially was to begin harvesting vineyards with lowest acidity. And at the time this was Genesis high.

After this harvest the weather got worse, and the strategy had to be changed to harvesting the grapes with weakest health. At the time this was Bishop backyard, despite its high acidity.

After that we could not any longer harvest vineyards separate, and had to mix grapes from different vineyards for the pressing.

Due to extremely difficult weather we also had to press the day after the harvest. It can be tricky to preserve the grapes until next day, but since we harvest very careful manually in small boxes it was no problem to in that respect. Also the night were cold which considerably helped preservation.

Pressing

At the first pressing we got surprised how fast the juice from Genesis high got so very good, and we had some problems to catch up with our multiplexor pipe equipment.

As 2015 each pressing went into four fraction, the 1st and 2nd being the best for separate fermentation, and the 3rd fraction with a mix from all vineyards for separate fermentation. The fourth fraction contain self-run and hard-pressed juice and is not any more a big amount, and is not fermented by us.

After pressing we had the following tanks of juice:

Fermentation

The only big problem with fermentation from this vintage was the low level of yeast nutriments in the grapes, which created problems to get the fermentation to work in the optimal way.

We use the best yeast available from France, and by now we are very familiar with the fermentation process. For example, we start at 6 °C, and we perfectly know when to rise the temperature and how fast.

There were even no problem to finish the fermentation despite our high alcohol levels. Since the acidity were higher than normal, we also preserved some more residual sugar. Our rule of thumb is to leave the same grammes per liter sugar as there are grammes of acidity.

The fermentation in all our tanks were finished in February.

Assemblage

The first week in May we organized the assemblage to our 2016 portfolio.

It was rather easy and logical to do. The best vineyard fractions we usually bottle separate, and the Genesis high 1st fraction was no exception to this.

However, the Bishop Backyard 2 fractions were a bit odd because of the harvest panic and the lack of nutrients, and to not risk to spread this uncertainty to other wines, we decided to assemble the two Bishop Backyards fractions into one wine.

Further on, the Genesis 2nd fractions were mixed with the remaining 1st fractions into one premium wine.

The remaining 2nd fractions were mixed with all vineyard 3rd fractions into one base wine.

Totally we got four 2016 wines which will give us totally around 12 000 bottles.

Label theme

The theme for the labels for our four 2016 wines is Asia. During the fermentation in the winter, we were visiting Hong Kong, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, with so many impressions, which were quite enough also for some wine labels.

Banana Split

Banana Split
Taken into account how much monkeys love bananas, it is quite adorable how this monkey tries to split his banana with the golden goddess.

Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link fom the the QR code at the back label).

Chicken year

Chicken Year
In Asia, 2017 is the year of the rooster. However, this modern rooster is feminist, and wants more to be seen as a chicken.

Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link fom the the QR code at the back label).

Street smart

Street Smart
Many dangers lurk in the city, and this threat wasn't taken serious by the vespa driver.

Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link fom the the QR code at the back label).

Tie mania

Tie Mania
In this corner of the world, every market has a wide range of ties to offer, and it is unavoidable to not buy too many.

Link for more details (leads to the same site as the link fom the the QR code at the back label).

Link to a mania video showing the owner going banana when collecting ties.

Contacts

Sale
Mária Antoanett Crab
Mobile: +36 70 269 1286
Email: Mária Antoanett Crab

Sandahl Rezidencia
Illés Tekla
Mobile: +36 70 368 8013
Mobile: +36 70 385 3577
Email: Illés Tekla

Site manager
Wine maker

Zsolt Palkó
Mobile: +36 30 530 4739 Email: Zsolt Palkó

Estate co-owner
Christer Sandahl
Mobile: +46 733 736008
Email: Christer Sandahl