Egg, concrete, wine – how is this fitting together?
The first concrete egg I ever saw was in my most favorite wine region the Burgund. By coincidence I have visited a winery there to the time when they got their first egg delivered. So I was part when it has been unpacked and found a place in the winery.
They are not really light these eggs. The weight is around 1,5 tons empty and if you fill them up to the top (max 700 liters), its not so easy to drive them around with a forklift, turn it around etc. But after our first journey to Rhone in 2013 when we tasted the same Viognier out of an egg, compared out of a 500l liter barrel and a big oak barrel, I knew, I need something like this.
I was amazed by the clearness of the aroma and the straight and natural fruit. Fastly I found out where to get it and the point that the egg is constructed in the golden cut and concreted without any additives, comforted me only slightly because of the big price.
About the juice: I never experienced such a beautiful spontaneously fermentation like in this oversized Easter decoration. Is it because the yeast is floating better in this form? Possibly. For sure the wine is never getting too hot while fermentation. The concrete cover is saving the produced warmth and therefore every year it happens that the alcoholic fermentation is going straight over to the acid degradation and both is ending to the same time.
I am not the most spiritual person, therefore I don`t talk about the meaning of the form in different cultures or religions to justify the purchase of the eggs. I ordered the first egg because I wanted to experiment. Our collection raised and nowadays we have some experience in which we know which variety likes it a lot, if we only ferment a wine in an egg and fill it afterwards in wood, partly wood and concrete or if we choose another container. But I can say one thing, all white wines have been partly, sometime in the egg.
By the way the first wine we had for fermentation and aging in the egg was the Neuburger betont. 2014 and on Easter 2015 hatched from the egg. We kept the combination from Neuburger and Easter because it is fitting together. J
