Nava 2020 – Piri Naturel

This is kind of special wine, so we’ll give the word to Piri:
“As you all know, the picking date is one of the most important decisions made by a winemaker. I try to find the right balance between fully ripe with abundant aromas and crisp acidity. 3 weeks before we started picking the 2020 grapes, I decided to do some trials and pick our Siegerrebe-vineyard (“Siegerrebe” is the grape variety which is related to Gewürztraminer) by the end of August already. The sugar levels were fairly low still, but Sieger is predestined to be eaten by deers and wild boars, so I wanted to get the best out of these delicious grapes and try out how early we could pick. Lots of friends helped picking and we finished this gorgeous summer day with slightly foot-stomping the grapes that then fermented in whole bunches without any punchdowns for 3 weeks. The colour therefore turned orangy-rosé-ish. Honestly at the beginning it literally tasted like biting into a whole cluster of grapes: some sweetness, some acidity, loud Sieger/Gewürz-aroma but also like biting onto the green stems. But what happened throughout the aging was crazy: the aroma is absolutely insane! The smell so aromatic! It has some grip and length but more so from the gentle skincontact, less from ripe fruit, still the very pure taste of the aromatic grapes. Bonedry and with only 8,0% alcohol! Nava is the old word for Nahe by the way and this cuvée is the smallest quantity I have made this year with only 750 liters in total.