Carnuntum 2019

Site & soil

Due to erosion over the course of many decades, lower-lying areas in each vineyard have thicker layers of soil than the rest.  In very dry years, the lower part has better water nutrition and therefore the grapes mature more evenly and fully than in the significantly more meagre places higher up. In years with a wet autumn, grapes in these lower parts ripen later and quite differently from the rest.

We use those grapes for our regional wine “Carnuntum”, which is a blend of 65% Blaufränkisch and 35% Syrah.

Harvest & vinification

As with all our wines, we don’t use sulphur on the grapes, we ferment with wild yeasts and we macerate very softly in large wooden fermenters without using any mechanical tools. Grapes and must are neither heated nor cooled. During the wine’s two years of maturation, we make only one soutirage – for the rest of the time, the wine just matures slowly.

The result is an impressive wine, very seductive with fruit, finesse and tempting acidity. It is a wine that sommeliers love to serve by the glass, as it evolves and improves the longer the bottle is open.

Vintage 2019

The end of spring was cool and humid, which provided enough water to the soils for a long and very dry summer. Autumn, too, was dry and sunny, but become the weather became chilly quite early.

With all these ups and downs, in the end, the vintage brought ideal conditions for an outstanding vintage, that shows complexity, density and elegant freshness at the same time.