Wachter Wiesler - Blaufrankisch, Eisenberg Bela-Joska, Austria (2020)

TASTING NOTES

Imagine the perfect mash-up of Pinot Noir and Syrah - this is a beautiful, peppery, floral, dusty medium-bodied red with humming acidity. Silky texture, floral aromatics, great energy, and elegance.

Only native yeasts are used in the cellar. Wachter ferments his wines twenty to thirty per cent whole-cluster, and ages in large barrels that allow the wines to mature gracefully without obscuring them with oak.

Christoph Wachter began working at his family winery in 2008 when he was just twenty years old. He took over full responsibility in 2010, and now farms sixteen hectares of vineyards in Südburgenland, in the towns of Eisenberg and Deutsch Schützen. 

When Wachter started in 2010, he stopped using herbicides and pesticides entirely. Today, he is one of only three producers in Südburgenland who is farming organically and is certified as of the 2018 vintage. In 2012, he studied biodynamic farming for two years and he applies some biodynamic techniques today. He allows the weeds to grow in his vineyards, as they attract beneficial insects and eventually return to the soil as nutrients themselves. Rather than add fertilizer, he leaves the vines to extract what they need from the soil itself, thus instilling the wines with minerality and allowing them to express their unique terroir.

Rolling hillsides, small mountains really, called the pre-Alps, topped with forest regulates the temperature enabling harvest to start two weeks after Mittelburgenland (Austria's Bläufrankisch heartlands).