2018 Syrah

Site & soil

The grapes for this Syrah grow on the Spitzerberg – more precisely, in the vineyards Ried Roterd & Ried Spitzer, both on the southern slope of the hillside. It is a pure, very dry limestone soil, which retains hardly any of the meagre rainfall. The Syrah, which develops its aroma and varietal typicity late in the autumn, enjoys the dry summer and the long autumn on the Spitzerberg. It shows its best sides when it is harvested earliest at the beginning of October – so, only after the last of the  Blaufränkisch. Thanks to the poor limestone soil, Syrah always maintains a precise, clear structure here, and never becomes too corpulent or baroque of character, even in very hot years. Monovarietal Syrah does not meet the specifications for Carnuntum^DAC (2/3 Zweigelt and/or Blaufränkisch), and therefore states its designation of origin on the label as Niederösterreich.

Harvest & vinification

The clusters are harvested by hand and any overripe berry is manually removed. In the cellar, the grapes are lightly crushed and macerated partly with the stems in open fermentation vats. This extraction is very gentle and occurs completely without pumping, and fermentation begins after a few days thanks to the wild yeasts. The spontaneous fermentation proceeds very slowly and at room temperature; the must is neither heated nor cooled. This guarantees wines that are very precise & aromatic. After approximately twenty days, the wine is pressed and then matured in large old wooden casks for about twenty months. During this time, the wine is racked only one time, and ultimately bottled without filtration.

Vintage 2018

2018 was a year of extremes: very fast flowering, then a cooler period with some rains until end of June. Followed by a very dry and very hot summer. We had to cut off grapes from young vines to prevent them from dying. The old vines with their deep roots, though, were less impressed by the heat. Begin of september, just before harvest, we had big rains which caused some problems in flat vineyards. But on the stony and dry vineyards on the higher Spitzerberg, those rains even were beneficial, as they reduced the stress and helped to soften the tannins.

The result is a beautiful complex and incredibly dense wine. Thanks to very precise hand picking, our Syrah never gets jammy but is despite the density always refreshing, cheerful and light-footed, as well. An ideal expression of limestone terroir.