PREVIOUS VINTAGES

2006

Our first vintage, which, in many ways, was something of an experiment. 2006 was a good year for Danish cherries, the best for some time: countrywide, some 140,000 tons of sour cherries were harvested.

2006 was a good year for Frederiksdal's cherries too, although the size of the harvest affected the sugar content of the fruit, which we measured at a slight 89 Oechsle (the international standard measurement of sugar content). In total, we produced 1200 litres of wine, which weren't remarkable at all - or so we thought, not accounting for the 225-litre French barrels nor the rancio demijohns sitting in the sun.

Most of the 2006 vintage we bottled as 'Rancio' and 'Reserve'; the remainder became the backbone of our solera system.

2007

A record year for cherries. A total of 170,000 tons of cherries were harvested in Denmark.

Again, it was as an excellent year for Frederiksdal, too - plenty of fruit, and a respectable sugar content, measured at 98 Oechsle, to boot.

Nevertheless, we made no wine in 2007. We still had everything from 2006, which we weren't especially excited about. We didn't have the courage for another year. But we didn't yet know what we had.

2008

A chilly parenthesis in the history of the Danish cherry. Owing to the cold spring, only 1,900 tons of sour cherries were harvested in the whole of Denmark!

At Frederiksdal we were practically cherryless too… but when the 2006 vintage began showing interesting qualities, we tasted blood.

We managed to scrape together a total of a mere 1000 litres in 2008 - but the wine was truly excellent, with an equally good sugar content of 110 Oechsle. The calibre of the maturer wine prompted us to bottle it in the same year as our fresh, young 'vintage' wine; what we didn't bottle we kept to mature in 225-litre French barrels and glass rancio demijohns or introduced into our solera system.

2009

A great year, in terms of volume alone. 150,000 tons of cherries were harvested in Denmark.

At Frederiksdal, our new winery was ready for the harvest of the fiery red cherries in our orchards.

The large volume of fruit meant that the trees took their time to generate sufficient sugar; fortunately, the summer was long and warm, allowing us to take our time to harvest. The first fruit we measured at eighty-nine Oechsle. The very last stood at 133!

In total, we produced 35,000 litres of wine. Most were bottled as the fruity, potent Frederiksdal ‘Kirsebærvin'. A small amount from a single field, ‘Nielstrupmark', a study area where we didn't fertilise the trees, was bottled under that field's name. The rest ended up in 225-, 400- and 450-litre French barrels and glass demijohns to be ‘Reserve', ‘Rancio' and ‘Solera'.

2010

Number-wise, a catastrophe. The cold spring that blasted the flowers meant that only 1,500 tons of cherries were harvested in all of Denmark—even worse than the trough in 2008.

It was hard to find a cherry in Frederiksdal's orchards that year.

But when you did, that cherry was peerless.

From every tree we had, we scraped together just over 8,000 litres of magnificent quality, with a perfect sugar content at 110 Oechsle. Most of the wine was kept to mature in 225- and 400-litre French barrels for ‘Reserve' and ‘Solera'. This was the first year we fermented our wine in temperature-controlled vats.