Ried Kirchweingarten 2019 1ÖTW

Site & soil

Kirchweingarten is the only wine we make that is not grown on Spitzerberg, but in the village of Höflein, aproximately 12 kilometers west of Prellenkirchen. “The vineyard of the church” is situated – very picturesque – just below the church of village on a soft south facing slope.

The soil consists of limestone with some layers of clay and loess, which keep the roots of the vines cool, while the heads profit from the intense sunshine. This makes a very fruitdriven Blaufränkisch, both complex and lightfooted.

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 nearly two years of maturation, we make only one soutirage – for the rest of the time, the wine just matures slowly.

After 20 months, the wine is bottles without any filtration.

Vintage 2019

Spring was long and rainy and provided the soils very well with humidty, which was definitely needed during an extremly hot and dry summer. Autumn was stable, and temperatures went down quite early. All together, 2019 is a fantastic vintage, probably the best of all the 2010-years with wonderful complexity and freshness.