27.08.2019

Rieslings are alchemy. 2018 VOC will be a combination of four

Only a few days left until the beginning of this year's harvest, which means that it is necessary to finish work in our wine cellar. That means creation of our “Grand Cru” Riesling VOC. Although the wine is marked on the bottle as a single-grape wine made exclusively from one type of grape, in fact its combination of various grapes of Riesling. Experts name this process oenological blend.

"At Sonberk Riesling is our main variety, one third of our vineyards is Riesling. It grows in different parts of our vineyard, so we harvest the grapes separate from each other and the juice made from them as well. Last year, for example, we had twelve tanks of different Riesling," explains our winemaker Olda Drápal. You can see that creation of our most important wine, Riesling VOC, is a great alchemy.

This wine is created by combining the content of several tanks and it is mainly on Olda, how many of them will be used and how the result will taste. “From the year 2018 I prepared ten samples. We tasted about four of them and finally we choose the final one, which we had bottled a few days ago,” says Olda, who did the final selection in cooperation with our sommelier David Pavlíček and Dáša Fialová, head of the business and marketing.

The final Riesling VOC should have a constant taste profile and about four grams of residual sugar per liter. But tricky is that you should drink it at least three years after botling so the first taste in winery is definitely not the final one.

Moreover, it doesn´t work like in the kitchen. You can not just simply calculate the content of the bottle. "No, it certainly doesn't work by having the tanks analyzed and then somehow added up to the results of the analysis," laughs Olda, who has to rely on his own experience and art. Riesling VOC 2018 finally consists of four parts of the Riesling harvest. But VOC is not yet ready to drink, we have to wait for it. Meanwhile, you can have his younger brother, the award-winning 2017 edition.


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