Vintage 2022
Activities in the Badacsony region was managed very successful by our site manager Zsolt Palkó and the Hungarian team around him.
The weather
The weather through the growing season of 2022 were quire normal in temperatures. The spring and autumn rather cold, and the summer warm.
Notably, there were a couple of cold nights in April the 2022-04-11 and 2022-04-28, causing frost and damaging the vines situated on plain level below slopes. Luckily all our vineyards are on rather steep slopes, not collecting stagnant cold air close to the ground.
Click on the graph to get better resolution.
The spring 2022 were very wet, but the low temperature didn't cause any problems with that. The summer were perfect rainy for the grapes to develop.
I often get questions, if the climate warming doesn't cause drought and problems in our vineyards, but my simple answer is that we always have perfect amount of rain during the whole summer. In 2011 and specially in 2012, we had to dry weather, but since then we have had no problems with any possible climate change.
Click on the graph to get better resolution.
Grape measurements
| Vineyard | Parameter | Date |
||
| 2022-09-13 | 2022-09-24 | |||
| Bishop Backyard West | Sugar g/l | 211,00 | 217,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,45 | 12,83 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 6,7 | 6,4 | ||
| Bishop Backyard East | Sugar g/l | 212,00 | 207,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,50 | 12,15 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 6,4 | 6,7 | ||
| Genesis Grafts East | Sugar g/l | 202,00 | 211,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 11,93 | 12,45 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,0 | 6,7 | ||
| Genesis High | Sugar g/l | 208,70 | 215,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,30 | 12,68 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,0 | 6,5 | ||
| Genesis Low | Sugar g/l | 210,00 | 215,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,38 | 12,68 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,2 | 6,5 | ||
| Genesis Grafts West | Sugar g/l | 213,00 | 211,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,60 | 12,45 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,5 | 6,7 | ||
| Solitude | Sugar g/l | 209,20 | 212,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,38 | 12,53 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,3 | 7,1 | ||
| Bishop Garden | Sugar g/l | 216,50 | 211,00 | |
| Pot. Alcohol (%) | 12,75 | 12,45 | ||
| Total acid (g/l) | 7,2 | 6,7 | ||
Harvest
To our great luck we succeeded to harvest perfectly ripe grapes during a gap of two weeks without rain, see above and below figures. Unfortunately, these two weeks were preceded by a more than a month of very wet weather, accelerating botrytis in our lower quality vineyards. As fast the weather dried up, we decided to immediately pick what was clean and high quality botrytized grapes, and to plan a second collection of what was useful to enrich our solid ground wines.
Below are shown the vineyards harvested and pressed, indicated in the precipitation table above
| Date | Action | Vineyard(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
1h |
2022-10-05 |
1st round of harvest | Genesis low, minor botrytized | |
1p |
2022-10-06 |
Pressing | Genesis low, minor botrytized | |
2h |
2022-10-06 |
1st round of harvest | Bishop Garden, minor botrytized | |
2p |
2022-10-07 |
Pressing | Bishop Garden, minor botrytized | |
3h |
2022-10-12 |
1st round of harvest | Genesis east, Bishop Backyard, Solitude, non-botrytized | |
3p |
2022-10-13 |
Pressing | Genesis east, Bishop Backyard, Solitude, non-botrytized | |
4h |
2022-10-13 |
1st round of harvest | Genesis high and west, non-botrytized | |
4p |
2022-10-14 |
Pressing | Genesis high and west, non-botrytized | |
5h |
2022-10-17 |
2nd round of harvest | Genesis, Bishop Backyard and Solitude, botrytized | |
5p |
2022-10-18 |
Pressing | Genesis, Bishop Backyard and Solitude, botrytized |
Pressing
Because of the small quantities of fractions, which were too small to ferment separately, we had to make a somewhat intelligent pre-assembly, see below.
| Date | Pressing | Fraction | Tank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-10-06 | 1st round of Genesis low | 1st |
1 |
|
2nd |
3 |
|||
| 2022-10-07 | 1st round of Bishop Garden | 1st |
2 |
|
2nd |
3 |
|||
| 2022-10-13 | 1st round of Genesis east, Bishop Backyard and Solitude | 1st |
4 |
|
2nd |
6 |
|||
| 2022-10-14 | 1st round of Genesis high and west | 1st |
5 |
|
2nd |
6 |
|||
| 2022-10-17 | 2nd round of Genesis, Bishop Backyard and Solitude | 1st |
2 |
|
2nd |
3 |
|||
| From 2022-10-06 to 2022-10-17 |
All vineyards | 3rd |
7 |
Fermentation
| Tank | Start ⁰Celsius | End ⁰Celsius | Start date |
Break date |
Duration days | Res. sugar |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | 13 | 2022-10-12 | 2023-01-13 | 93 | ≈ 8 | |
| 2 | 2022-10-21 | ||||||
| 3 | 7 | 14 | 2022-10-22 | 2023-01-23 | 94 | ≈ 7.5 | |
| 4 | 7 | 11 | 2022-10-22 | 2023-01-23 | 93 | ≈ 7 | |
| 5 | 7 | 14 | 2022-10-22 | 2023-01-28 | 98 | ≈ 6.5 | |
| 6 | 7 | 17 | 2022-10-22 | 2023-02-09 | 110 | ≈ 7 | |
| 7 | 7 | 14 | 2022-10-22 | 2023-01-28 | 98 | ≈ 8 |
Assembling the portfolio
| Wine | Name | Grade | Tank | From vineyards and fractions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Evergreen | Rare peak plus | 4 |
1st round Genesis east 1st fraction 1st round Bishop Backyard 1st fraction 1st round Solitude 1st fraction |
|
| 2 | Golden moments | Rare peak plain | 1 |
1st round of Genesis low 1st fraction | |
5 |
1st round of Genesis high and west 1st fraction | ||||
| 3 | Roses darling | Mid range | 6 |
1st round of Genesis east, Bishop Backyard and Solitude 2nd fraction | |
6 |
1st round of Genesis high and west 2nd fraction | ||||
| 4 | Out of the Blue | Solid ground | 2 |
1st round of Bishop Garden 1st fraction 2nd round of Genesis, Bishop Backyard and Solitude 1st fraction |
|
3 |
1st round of Genesis low 2nd fraction 1st round of Bishop Garden 2nd fraction 2nd round of Genesis, Bishop Backyard and Solitude 2nd fraction |
||||
7 |
All rounds all vineyards 3rd fraction |
Bottling
During the years, Villa Sandahl have had so many problems with cork defects and contaminations. Many new wine regions with entrepreneur orientation has gradually shifted from nature cork to screw caps. This vintage we took the decision to introduce screw caps for all our three grades.
Since we use the capsule to indicate the grade and thereby the wine quality, we decided:
- Solid Ground wines have a white capsule with black text
- Mid Range wines have a black capsule with white text
- Rare Peak wines have a black capsule with golden text
Wine information
This vintage showed to be our best ever. The wines are smooth, the acidity on perfect level, and the taste very delicate. Our wine production has been been unprofitable since start, but now we will have a chance to catch up.
Label theme
The label theme for this vintage is neurographics, which is a special school within the aquarelle art. Typical outline is long curvy lines, which together form the fantasy motif of different colors.
Evergreen
Golden moments
Roses darling
Out in the Blue
