“Winemaking is a puzzle”

October isn’t just harvest time. It’s also when the winemakers fine-tune the upcoming Immelen and Askesäng wines.
“There were two barrels we needed to think about. We’ve now decided how they’re to be blended,” says Robert Steidl, our consultant from Austria, as he discusses the matter with our winemakers.

In the winery, the floor is still wet after the presses have been cleaned. Inside the doorway, colourful buckets are piled high; the secateurs lie on the ground beside them. Everything has been tidied up after yesterday’s pressing and is ready for tomorrow’s harvest of Rondo and Regent.
Upstairs, in the conference room, it is quiet save for the hum of conversation and the scratching of pens. Here sit the owner, winemakers Helena Lindberg and Nico D’agostini, and consultant Robert Steidl, tasting their way through the 2025 vintage that will become Immelen and Askesäng.

Robert Steidl was previously head of Klosterneuburg, a renowned Austrian univeristy of wine and winemaking. He has been the winery’s consultant since 2017. In mid-October, the group tasted the 2025 vintages of Askesäng and Immelen, which are due to be released next year.
“There’s always a barrel or two that you need to wait on. We’ve now decided that the Souvignier Gris will go into Immelen, as will a small proportion of the Muscaris – like the top note in Chanel No. 5. The remaining Muscaris will be left to rest a little longer.”
The world of wine is very much about time and patience. And about making decisions at the right moment.

It’s a sharp contrast to when Robert arrived in 2017. Back then, Kullabergs Vingård was still based in the old winery, which is now the shop and distillery. It’s not just the facilities that have improved; the vineyard itself has developed too. We have more hectares and more grapes to work with.
“In the past, we didn’t have enough space for all the tanks, which meant we had to blend the grapes as early as during the harvest. Today, we can vinify all the plots and varieties separately, and blend them later. We can decide afterwards what goes best together.”

Whilst the 2025 vintage was a challenge, with problematic flowering and low yields, 2026 is looking considerably better. Robert has been inspecting the vineyards together with Helena and Nico.
“Nice, healthy grapes with good fruit and moderate alcohol levels”, he sums up hopefully.
“And at last we’ve got a good crop of grapes. It’s down to a combination of pruning, fertilisation, the weather… it’s a puzzle. Everything that happens and everything you do has an impact within the bigger picture.”
However, he wants to emphasise the importance of how the freshly harvested grapes are handled.
“80 per cent of how the wine turns out is decided within two days of harvest. How you press them, whether to start straight away or leave the grapes overnight, when fermentation begins…”
“During those two days, you have to make the right decisions; there’s no time to think it over. That’s why you have to study for five years”, he says with a twinkle in his eye.