It's easy to see that autumn isn't traveling with Deutsche Bahn, as it's running ahead of schedule this year.
While I was hoping for a slowly fading summer, it is already time for wool socks and herbal tea. The first pumpkins are making faces, while chestnuts are rolling across the paths. Leaves are turning red, brown and yellow, falling to the ground in the cool October breeze, where they turn into humus after two weeks of permanent rain, as if someone had ordered falafel.
In my humble opinion, Autumn is criminally underrated. While half the world eagerly awaits the completely overrated summer, everybody dreams of a white winter or talks about spring fever that smells like asparagus piss and causes nothing but hay fever, autumn is the secret star of the four seasons. For viticulture, it is the climax. The most exhausting, but also the most important time.
In my humble opinion, Autumn is criminally underrated. While half the world eagerly awaits the completely overrated summer, everybody dreams of a white winter or talks about spring fever that smells like asparagus piss and causes nothing but hay fever, autumn is the secret star of the four seasons. For viticulture, it is the climax. The most exhausting, but also the most important time.
In my humble opinion, Autumn is criminally underrated.
Many wineries have already finished harvesting. Some earlier than ever before. The cellars are gurgling as fermentation is in full swing. The wine now needs some me-time.
No ifs, ands, or buts: The harvest is the Super Bowl of the wine season. All wineries work toward this one moment throughout the entire year. To pick physiologically ripe grapes with beautiful acidity levels the desired must weight. Selecting, destemming, mashing, waiting for spontaneous fermentation to begin, so the juices can move to their new home after they were gently pressed: the cellar.
No ifs, ands, or buts: The harvest is the Super Bowl of the wine season. All wineries work toward this one moment throughout the entire year. To pick physiologically ripe grapes with beautiful acidity levels the desired must weight. Selecting, destemming, mashing, waiting for spontaneous fermentation to begin, so the juices can move to their new home after they were gently pressed: the cellar.
The wine now needs some me-time.
A whole year's work culminating in four weeks. As a winemaker, you must be crazy. Putting put your fate in the hands of nature. A higher power. Mother Earth. Climate change. Concentrating a year's work into a four-week period: insane.
Yes, autumn is demanding. It takes an endless amount of energy, but it also gives it back. It reflects the spirit that flows into it. In the cosmos of viticulture, autumn is the sun around which everything revolves. Pruning from January to March is also essential. Of course. The work in spring is no less important. Bending, tying, and stapling the vines. Pest control. Budding, flowering, and grape formation. Indispensable. That's how the cycle works. But autumn determines how wineries spend the winter, spring and summer. Or rather, how they survive these seasons. Because every whim of nature affects the mood
It can't rain in the third line of the fourth paragraph of this text. Hail damage in the headline and late frost in the last sentence? No chance. Neither deer, foxes and birds steal the fruits of my labor without permission and even the cherry vinegar fly and mildew are not interested in my chatter. How fortunate that I don't address my texts to fungal diseases, but to people. With this in mind: here's to a beautiful autumn. And thank you for reading. Cheers.
It can't rain in the third line of the fourth paragraph of this text. Hail damage in the headline and late frost in the last sentence? No chance. Neither deer, foxes and birds steal the fruits of my labor without permission and even the cherry vinegar fly and mildew are not interested in my chatter. How fortunate that I don't address my texts to fungal diseases, but to people. With this in mind: here's to a beautiful autumn. And thank you for reading. Cheers.
Milton Sidney Curtis, wine influencer and freelance writer, brings wit, edge, and charm to the world of wine with his writing. Whether it’s fine drops from small wineries or branded wines from global players: Sidney tastes, reviews, and stirs up debate. A self-proclaimed “silly ass” for everyone who loves wine!
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