How real wine came about at Ploder – Rosenberg
What is particularly original is the practice of creating in Kevries (amphorae from special clay) very profound and sustainable wines from whole grapes and berries having long periods of maceration, alcoholic and malolactic fermentations and maturation. This includes increasing healthy components as well as beneficial energy from the power of the earth.
For many years we’ve been growing here our own biological, dynamic vines in our totally diverse gardens of wine in the Vulkanland area of Styria. Specially selected, ripened and totally healthy batches from the best vines are harvested by hand, sorted and stored in our Georgian kevries / clay amphorae which are buried in the ground. Maceration, alcoholic and malolactic fermentation takes place here for months on end without any additives and technical intervention but with goodwill and constant tastings. In certain cycles immersion takes place and thereby a dampening of the cap which has risen up. At the beginning impetus is initiated through escaping fermentation carbonic acids. The sedimentation of the seeds, skins and berry components set in after several weeks. The raw diamond wine is what appears above the mash in the amphorae.
In the case of the present vintages, the separation of the mash takes place after just 4 months through siphoning off the red wine and pressing the damp cake of mash through sieve surfaces. The resulting wine is entrusted for a further 4 months to the amphorae. In the early summer it is too warm outside so we take the wine into the cool cellar to earthware containers (700 l “clay eggs”) or vats made of different types of wood and of varying toasting levels. After 2 further years of storage it is bottled totally unfiltered without or with only the smallest amount of sulphor added.