One summer of the century follows the next…

new records in heat and drought After a very warm and dry year 2018, 2019 started with a water deficit in the soil, which increased during the summer.
Except for a short winter intermezzo in January, which enabled us to harvest an ice wine again after 10 years, the period February to April was too warm, so that nature woke up early and gave us a lead of 10 days to the long-term average.
A cool May was followed by summer months that were clearly too warm and too dry. On 30 July, the “age-old heat record” from 1892 was surpassed, followed by an unprecedented heat wave in July with temperatures above 40°C. Here we recorded in part considerable damage due to sunburn. The water situation only eased at the end of September. Unfortunately the rain came too late and exactly at the time of the main harvest.
In the year 2019 all predicate stages could be produced up to Beerenauslese (berry selection) and ice wine, with considerable quality.