Portugeezers: A chat with Jonas Brand

Weingut Brand
Germany, Pfalz, Bockenheim

As the sun arrives, so do the wines from those sunny German brothers, Daniel & Jonas Brand. Arriving with this tranche is a top up of their single-varietal whites from 2019, their 2020 not-nouveau: Brand Rot and the new vintage of Wildrosé. 

We caught up with Jonas recently as he was negotiating his tractor through the wind tunnel that is their Portugieser vineyards. The growing season has been slow in the Pfalz this year; the slowest Jonas has seen, "It scares you as a farmer, you don't know how to act. Some shoots are only at 3cm and others are at 15cm. It makes it really hard to make decisions."

2020 was by contrast, incredibly convenient. The growing season was paced nicely, speedy but not so fast that the brothers were rushed. Jonas feels like their energy going into harvest has really paid off in the wines:  "What I believe is: that spirit you're in on the approach to, and during harvest contributes the most to the wines, and we had an amazing team. If we have good food, good energy, a good vibe, then we're all in a good state of mind, especially my brother & I, it really helps the wines."

Whilst up in the Portugieser vineyards, trying to spray into the wind against powdery & downy mildew, Jonas discussed two of the new arrivals picked from these plots, Wild Rosé 2019 and the Brand Rot 2020:

“Portugieser grows super nicely, it's very healthy- but the deer love it. They love to snack on the shoots, that's the biggest problem in a farming sense. So we get good yields mostly, and the quality is great. But as a varietal, it's really high in PH, so in the cellar it's more complicated. It's hard to make no sulphur natural wines with it, so we have to be careful. 

“Wildrosé is one of my favourite wines of ours, but it's never the easiest to make for this reason. The 2016 & 2017 got mousy pretty fast, and we realised they just need time. It changes so much after half a year, the mouse was completely gone in the 16 & 17 after 6 months. So for this wine we always give it half a year or more once bottled, and it's so fresh and stable.

“Each variety we work in a specific way, so we pick all the Portugieser and process it in one go. They get a very vigorous foot stomp, sit on the skins for two or three days before pressing, and then we split it up in the end: we fill a very large 100 year old barrel, and a couple of smaller 10 year old barrels, for Wildrosé. The juice that's left goes to tank for the Brand Rot. 

“So the Nouveau, or... not-nouveau by the time we release it, has this foot stomped Portugieser, and a little carbonic maceration Cab Franc to make up about 15% of the blend. We have a little plot here, and we love the variety, it gets ripe, but not over-ripe. We use the carbonic to bring that fresh fruity vibe and lose some greener notes, it works really nicely with Portugieser. We'll also keep a few barrels from other vintages of Cab Franc, we taste them as we're making up the blend, and some of those might go in also.

“We bottle in November, and we used to release it like a Nouveau, but it does need time, so now we wait. But it makes sense for us because this is another one to drink in the park, with your friends, with a little chill. It's a much nicer time of year for this wine! 

"I've never seen so much wind in one year! This was my first attempt spraying this year, I was trying to use the gaps where there was no wind. Every day for the last two months has just been wind, wind, wind."

As Jonas abandoned spraying in a gale (his aim is to use tiny doses of copper (1oz p/ha), a tactic not suited to anything other than pretty still conditions) he drove back home, showing us the new plot at the top of the hill where they'll be planting Portugieser on limestone. 

“We have just under 2 hectares of Portugieser, but we love the Wildrosé and the Brand Rot and we really want to make more of them. So we're planting more, and we just bought a new Portugieser vineyard. We're going hard on the Portugieser! These are both wines that everyone deserves to drink, we want to make sure we have enough to go around.”

JUST LANDED

SPARKLING

2019 - Landwein - Pet Nat - Silvaner, Pinot Blanc

WHITE

2019 - Kabinett, Trocken - Stein & Fels - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur (Magnum Only) - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Pinot Blanc Pur - Pinot Blanc

ROSE

2019 - Landwein - Wild Rosé - Portugieser

RED
2020 - Landwein - Brand Red - Portugieser

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Daniel, Jonas & ‘Birkenstock Man’

Back in 'Crac 2020. A chat with Vincent Alexis

Back in ‘Crac. A Chat With Vincent Alexis

If all goes to plan, this time tomorrow we should have begun unloading a small mountain of wine from Chateau Barouillet, including a much needed top-up of the Splash pet nat, the new 2019 Pecharmant, and the 2020 vintages of the deeply-missed Bergecrac Blanc & Rouge.

We caught up with Vincent last week on his first sunny morning after 10 days of consecutive rain, to discuss the imminent arrivals and how the April frost had left things looking for 2021.

Bergecrac Rouge 2020 - Cab Sav, Cab Franc, Merlot, Malbec

"With the drought in 2020, yeasts were very low so we haven't been able to make as much this year. The grapes for Bergecrac Rouge in particular really fell victim to the heat. We've kept it fresh though, doing nice short macerations for everything: the maximum maceration in the 2020 blend is just 7 days.

"There's no extraction, we just do one pump over at the beginning of the fermentation and then that's it- so it's almost more like an infusion. We try to respect the juice & the fruit as much as possible."

Bergecrac Blanc 2020 - Sav Blanc, Sav Gris, Semillon, Chenin

"The whites coped in the heat better than the reds, and Bergecrac Blanc is a little more complex this year. Still nice and fresh, thanks to the Chenin. Everything is vinified separately, but blended together before ageing.

"It's lovely and round up front, but then super clean and fresh at the end. It's really nice this year.
Both the Bergecracs are bottled without any sulphur."

Pecharmant 2019 - Merlot, Cab Sav, Cab Franc
"The 2019 will be quite different to the 2018, it's the first vintage where we did a portion as whole-bunch for Pecharmant. It's just 30% whole-bunch, layered in the tank with the de-stemmed grapes like... like a lasagne!
It gives some freshness, some more fruit to the wine, we're really happy with that.

"We have 6 hectares in Pecharmant, and this cuvee is the blend of all the plots. For 2019 we didn't make any Hecate. The yeasts were quite low so we decided to just make one cuvee from these plots, so now the fruit from that flint heavy terroir is in the blend now too. Hecate will return for the 2020 vintage but it will be quite different... I'm super excited when it's ready to bottle to see what people think."

When we last spoke in late March, you were concerned about the imminent cold-snap as you'd had such an early bud-break. How are things looking after the frost?

"After the first couple of days of frost in April it looked like we had lost a lot, much more-so than in 2017. We were really sad. But now, with the second bud break, things are actually not looking too bad. We're quite happy with how it is growing again, I'd say we're going to have grapes for sure!

"The thing we're now waiting for is the flowering on the vine, which can be complicated after a frost. So we could have lots of grapes, or we could lose everything at flowering. Generally after a frost the flowering can be pretty risky. That should be happening in 2-3 weeks, we're waiting for that and hoping for a good sunny time until then!

"That's the next really important step for the vintage. We're waiting and hoping, we need it to be warmer now, the vines are a little yellow, they need the sun again. But it's 25 degrees outside today for the first time so we're full of hope!"

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