Rheinhessen Region

Wines

Raumland (Sekt) Estate

Rheinhessen, Germany

Raumland’s vineyard holdings are located in the following townships:
• Dalsheim, Rheinhessen with 4.1 ha (10.1 acres) which is also home base for the estate. These vineyards are planted to Riesling, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay

• Hohen-Sülzen, Rheinhessen with 1.5 ha (3.7 acres) planted 100% to Pinot Noir

• Bockenheim, Pfalz with 4.0 ha (9.9 acres) located 5km to the south of Dalsheim which is also Volker’s hometown. Riesling from these vineyards is used for Sekt whereas miscellaneous red wine varieties are vinified as still wine. • Terroirs are much like the soils in Burgundy, decomposed shell and algae limestone, alluvial soils with marl, and terra fusca

How Raumland Sekts are made:
• Very careful and painstaking hand selection. The grapes are placed in small 15 kg boxes to assure that none of the fruit is scarred or damaged. Grapes are picked at 75 to 80 Oechlse, the optimum must weight for sparkling wine
• Whole cluster pressing to preserve fruit aromas, no maceration, no mashing and no pumping of the juice.
• The “Champagne press program” with a duration of four hours,involves careful segmentation of the juice. The separation involves the first run (5%), the middle run or “heart” (50%) and the last run or taille (10%). To control phenolics the press is stopped after the last run. These figures coincide with champagne where 67% of the juice is used. First run and last run juices are used for the basic Sekts such as Cuvée Marie - Luise and Cuvée Katharina (named after the Raumland’s daughters) as are lower quality portions of the middle run. The better part of the middle run is used for the Prestige varietal Cuvées and the very best for the Grand Cuvee Triumvirat.

• The exception to the above is using the Saignée process by bleeding off prefermentation juice to make the Rose Prestige Cuvee (10% Pinot Noir) gathering juice for the Rose Prestige Cuvee (100% Pinot Noir)

• The time laps between harvest and the start of fermentation is a maximum of three days. Because of the earlier harvest for champagne grapes, fermentation starts already in September and often goes past November. The Pinot varietals and Chardonnay also go through a malolactic fermentation which lasts anywhere from two to six weeks depending on the PH of the wine ( high PH- fast malolactic, low PH- slow malolactic). After completion of the fermentation the wine is left on the fine yeast for maximum benefit. The wines are filtered and cold stabilized before Tirage. Tirage involves adding .24 gm/l of sugar and cultured Champagne yeast (sourced from Epernay in Champagne) and capping the bottles with a crown cork. This then starts yet another fermentation capturing CO2 which develops a pressure of six bars in the bottle. They are stored horizontally for maximum yeast contact for a minimum of 12 months to 12 years, depending on the quality of the Sekt. Four weeks before the Sekt is finished the bottles are hand riddled. After disgorgement a 1.0% dosage of a high quality wine is added to the prestige cuvees and 1/2% dosage to the Tête de Cuvee Triumvirat. The best quality dosage goes to the highest quality Sekt. • The Sekts are stored in a four stories deep cellar to achieve optimum ripeness and “pin point” mousse. The Sekts are continuously monitored and tasted to assure optimum quality. All Sekts, including older vintages are freshly disgorged before they leave the estate.

• The following Sekts are produced at Raumland: -Riesling Brut -100% Riesling -Cuvee Marie Louise Brut -100% Pinot Noir -Cuvee Kathrina Brut -Made from P.Noir, P.Meunier, more power & structure, dense & creamy, small percentage of new oak - Pinot Blanc Prestige Brut -100% Pinot Blanc – Blanc de Blanc style - Riesling Prestige Brut-terroir driven (limestone) with high minerality. -Chardonnay Prestige Brut-100% Chardonnay 2/3 stainless and 1/3 in barrique - I.Triumvirat Grand Cuvee Brut -single vineyard Dalsheim Bürgel a cuvee of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier & Chardonnay - Also Sparkling Grape Juice – No Alcohol