02.06.2019

Wine is like cheese. Mold can also benefit it

Maybe you know it with cheese. When you first hear that one is with a noble mold, it might scare you. But then, when you taste the cheese, you’ll find that this form of processing gives it a unique taste. Similarly, it is with our Riesling Noble rot, where the mold is called botrytis. It is made from grapes disturbed by the noble form of Botrytis cinerea. “All our Rieslings are dry, up to five grams of residual sugar. But this is semi-dry because it works differently, ”explains our winemaker Olda Drápal, for whom working with such a wine in the cellar is an interesting technological challenge.

Riesling Noble rot is only for the third time, because the creation of such a wine requires special conditions and access. The basic ingredient of a recipe for such wine is the weather. "In the literature, it is said that the need for fog overnight and during the day is windy and warm to allow water to evaporate from underneath the disturbed shell," says Olda.

Normally over a year winemakers are fighting with mold. They do not want it because it would destroy the crop. However, when they appear when the grapes are about 22 degrees of sugar content and mature, as they break the skin and water evaporates, it causes the individual berries to shrink and concentrate everything else in them.

At harvest, botrytis grapes are harvested separately and left on the bushes a little longer to mature evenly. "Berries then taste like quince jam or dried fruit," says Olda, who does not have to separate the individual batches in the cellar. It is enough to add just a little bit more sulfur to the botrytis Riesling, which is a little bit in its case, because it normally keeps it the way it is suppose to be.

The result of all this work is a wine that retains the taste of dried fruits, crosses and figs. Botrytic wine is also interesting for challenged wine drinkers because it changes the varietal character. If they have any general idea of the Riesling taste, they suddenly drink something completely different from the glass. "It is a challenge for us, because we can do everything in a technological way, but noble mold and wine cannot be bound by it," recalls Olda, who recently sent Riesling Noble rot 2017 after the 2005 and 2013 years. you can find it here.


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