Winemakers’ note: “Our connection to La Sorga’s Antony Tortul goes back to 2013 when he took the time to let us taste his cellar. In spring 2023, at the Le Coste organized C’era Una Volta in Italy, Michael brought a bunch of samples from our cellar for a post salon late night tasting with Antony and Patrick Bouju, scouting for a wine to put the new, golden BRUTAL!!! label on. With each new sample the group grew larger and a particular wine stood out as the crowd’s favorite. Antony patted Michael on the back and said, ‘I’ll give you the gold label for this.’ After a few more months of aging Jean Louis Pinto handed over the labels and we’re proud to present our first pure Riesling, the first German BRUTAL!!! 

Grapes: Riesling Vineyard: Eselsberg, Kitzingen — the same hill as the Heimat, the Fledermaus, the Weinschwärmer, and the Siebenschläfer. Shell limestone, Biodynamic farming. Planted in 2015, with the help of Michael’s parents and young son. Making of: the grapes are hand-harvested from the steepest section of the vineyard in September 2023, then pressed as whole bunches and fermented in a 1200l barrel, where the wine stayed until bottling in July 2024. No maceration, no temperature control. 0.4 g/l of RS.

2Naturkinder

Micheal Voelker and Melanie Drese spent many years working in other fields, traveling the world and living in Heidelberg, Regensburg, London, and New York. In 2013 they returned to begin taking over Michael’s father’s winery in Kitzingen in Franconia, Bavarian Germany. Michael’s father is a long-time winemaker, who in fact sits on the quality control board for the appellation, but has been very supportive of Michael’s desire to make wine without additives. They began to make natural wines under the 2naturkinder label as a side project for the winery, and since then have decided to fully expand the project to take over all of the winery’s production. Michael has a particular interest in bats in the vineyard, and a few of the labels are inspired by them. He obtains bat guano from a local nature conservancy, which he uses when fertilizer is required. He is also sponsoring a research project to fund the role of bats in the vineyard.