Melanie & Michael Voelker
Germany, Franconia, Kitzingen

We begin 2022 with a top-up of some of our favourite wines from Melanie & Michael at 2Naturkinder, and our last bottles of these vintages.

The 2019 whites are back in, a year in which they learnt to handle the drought that is becoming a regular fixture in Central Europe, but yields of their Bacchus were the biggest victim of the heat. The 2019's share a particular poise and precision.

The 2018 Spätburgunder was a triumphant year for their Pinot, with the 2016 and 2017 being nearly wiped-out by frost and fruit-fly attacks. A warmer year, the 2018 has more flesh on the bones compared to more linear earlier vintages.

Finally, we have their excellent trio of single-vineyard skin-macerated Silvaners, all bottled in March 2020. The Kleine Heimat is sourced from a vineyard in the middle of the Schwanberg hill on Keuper soils; the Wilde Heimat from a 40 year old vineyard at the steepest top of the hill on Keuper; and their Heimat Silvaner, from another steep plot much closer to the winery on shell limestone.

We discussed sunburn and the wines with Michael when they first landed, an excerpt of our conversation is below.

The Drei Freunde in particular has considerably less Bacchus than Michael would prefer, but despite his apprehension the results are dazzling. With skin-fermented Silvaner taking the lion's share, Drei Freunde '19 is pure, pretty and very delicious.

“I only have two Bacchus plots left, and from next year that will just be one! 2019 was not great for the Bacchus yield, we had a lot of heat damage & sunburn, a lot of grapes died. That's why the Drei Freunde '19 has much less Bacchus than previous years. I think that's the biggest difference out of all the 2019 wines.”

“Bacchus is very open to heat damage, the skins are super thin and the cells are pretty big, so they burst when it's too hot. We lost a lot in 2019 through the summer. So the Drei Freunde this year is dominated by skin fermented Silvaner. It's always nice to have fruity varieties for these wines, to have some pineapple or passionfruit flavours people can pick up pretty easily; and Bacchus was always very good for that. So perhaps it's lacking some of that easy, joyful fruitiness, and is a little more serious perhaps?”

“Silvaner has a more tannic structure than Bacchus, so we certainly have a little more back bone to the wine this year. The Müller Thurgau is really just a little icing on the cake that adds a little herbiness to lift it. The three wines for the blend were fermented and aged separately: semi-carbonic maceration for a week (the Bacchus was whole bunch), before Müller Thurgau and Bacchus were pressed off to steel tanks for fermentation and ageing, with the Silvaner destined for big old barrels. We blended it and bottled in July 2020.”

“The 2019 follows the style I’m aiming for these days, as did the 2018. That was super clean and precise, like 2015. One of the reasons being that I reduced the quantity and sorted out a few batches that I didn't fully trust, saved them in reserve for the Vater blend which we allow a little sulphur to be added to if needed. I don't want to add any sulphur to Fledermaus.”

”So now the Fledermaus is just three batches: our favourite big barrel of Muller Thurgau, a medium sized barrel of Sylvaner and a small tank of Riesling. 2019 is a very similar blend to 2018, Melanie says it's even better but I struggled to compare them!”

”The Silvaner has a little skin-contact overnight before we press. The challenge with Silvaner is it's a very pectine-heavy flesh, so you have to press long and hard if you do direct. If you give it a little more time you get the natural enzymes populating the must, and then it's a little easier to press. It gives it a different fruitiness to a hard direct press.“

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