Dhe story of Dörte and Meike Näkel is almost unbelievable. And because the sisters tell the details with their own mixture of calm down-to-earthness and Rhenish nonchalance, it seems all the more frightening and moving. What the two of them experienced on the night of July 14th to 15th, 2021 is otherwise only known from Hollywood films – but the Näkels' story is true. And in the end it actually turned out well.
Dörte and Meike Näkel are winemakers. Your family winery Meyer-Näkel in Dernau is one of the most renowned on the Ahr. Since 2008, the sisters have been running the 23-hectare business, which their father Werner led to international reputation in the early 1980s. The Pinot Noirs from Meyer-Näkel are among the best that viticulture on the Ahr and in Germany has to offer. But on the night when the once-in-a-century flood devastated the narrow Ahr valley two and a half years ago, the Näkels lost everything. The winery was almost completely destroyed, the sisters barely survived and were very lucky.
The two of them and their employees had been making preparations for the announced flood all day, filling sandbags and securing everything in the winery. In the evening they drove to their modern wine press and warehouse directly on the Ahr. There she met fate: “It all happened incredibly quickly,” remembers Meike Näkel. “First water ran into the hall, then the first gate broke, and a few minutes later we could no longer stand.” Within a few minutes, doors and walls were crushed by the masses of water, steel beams were snapped like matchsticks, and steel tanks were torn from their anchorages , all machines and barrels washed away like toys. The water was four meters high. The sisters had to swim to a second floor window to escape.
But it was even more dangerous outside, the Ahr floods swept away everything: tree trunks, garbage cans, gas tanks. The Näkels were driven towards Dernau and were finally able to escape up a tree. “We sat on it for eight hours until the volunteer fire department rescued us the next morning,” reports Meike Näkel. So they escaped with their lives – but their winery was almost completely destroyed, including the wine hall with the bottles of the 2019 vintage and the 2020 barrels.
Dörte and Meike Näkel have told their story hundreds of times and also how they cleaned up in the days, weeks and months that followed and started over again with the help of countless fellow winemakers from all over Germany. Now the sisters have added a final chapter to the story: that of the “Lost Barrels.” They have presented the wines from the “lost” barrels to the international wine public in Berlin, Bangkok and New York in recent weeks: nine Pinot Noirs from nine barrels that were found in the mud and rubble of the wine press hall in the days after the night of the flood Street or far away from Dernau in the Ahr Valley were found – externally battered, but with the contents intact. Nine of more than 350 barrels, that's all that's left of the 2020 vintage.
The wines from the “Lost Barrels” are the happy ending to the story: typical Meyer-Näkel Pinot Noirs from an intense, ripe vintage, slim but rich in extracts, complex but delicate. In total there are around 2,600 bottles that the sisters are now selling to selected customers all over the world. Hardly worth mentioning compared to the 120,000 to 130,000 bottles of a normal vintage – but to a certain extent liquid documents of contemporary history, witnesses to the tragedy of the Ahr flood. On the specially created website www.lost-barrels.com The nine wines are described in detail, even where the respective barrel was found. If you would like to have one of these extremely rare drops, you can also apply for it via a subscription process – for 600 euros per bottle.
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