Dexheim/Darmstadt (dpa/lhe) - While the harvest of early-ripening varieties is beginning in other German wine-growing regions these days, the winegrowers in the Rheingau are still taking their time. Traditionally, there are winegrowers who produce around 50 to 100 liters of Federweißer for the Rheingau Wine Week, said a spokesman for the Darmstadt regional council. "But to speak of the start of the harvest would be saying too much." The wine week in Wiesbaden started on Friday.
After hot and dry summer weeks, the grape harvest started on Monday in the Palatinate. According to Managing Director Bastian Klohr, the Weinbiet Manufaktur winegrowers’ cooperative in Neustadt an der Weinstraße harvested grapes from the early-ripening Solaris and Ortega grape varieties for the Federweißer, i.e. for young, still fermenting wine, which is also known as Rauscher in other regions.
In Rheinhessen it should start on Wednesday with Ortega grapes, for example at the Bacchushof winery in Dexheim (Mainz-Bingen district). But the first grapes will also be harvested this week in other of the 13 wine-growing regions in Germany, such as the Moselle, Franconia and Saxony. "The differences between the growing regions have weakened this year," said Ernst Büscher from the German Wine Institute. "The summer was exceptional because there were hardly any temperature differences across Germany."
Last year, after a rainy summer, the harvest for the Federweißen began on August 23rd. The earliest start of the Federweißer harvest so far was 2018 on August 6th. Büscher estimates that the main harvest will probably begin at the end of August or the beginning of September this year. According to the regional council, winegrowers in the Rheingau expect the Riesling harvest to begin in mid-September.
