Muscat Freyheit – 2022

Muscat Freyheit from Weingut Gernot Heinrich as an Orange Wine

Muscat Freyheit 2022 from Gernot Heinrich is a yeast-cloudy orange wine in which Muskat Ottonel sets the tone and Pinot Blanc provides the structure. Not a fizzy summer wine for quick thirst-quenching, but a calm food companion with a creamy texture and a tart edge.

Muscat Freyheit is the younger of the two skin-fermented Muskateller wines from the Gernot Heinrich winery in Gols, in Austria's Burgenland region. The vines grow on the southern slope of the Parndorfer Platte on sandy, gravelly loam soil. Added to this is Pinot Blanc from the calcareous eastern slopes of the Leitha Mountains, from Breitenbrunn and Winden am See. At 12.0 percent alcohol, the 2022 vintage is lighter on its feet than its older brother on the shelf.

Wheatgrass, fennel seed, and sweet-tart grapefruit

The nose gets less floral and more herbal here, as wheatgrass and fennel seed lay over the tropical fruit and give the wine its green base note.

Only behind that do kumquat and sweet-tart grapefruit emerge, and anyone thinking of sweet grape juice when it comes to this grape variety will be thoroughly corrected. Its peel bitterness combines with the tannins that the skins brought into the wine. On the palate, however, it doesn't overwhelm anyone because the creaminess holds everything together and the sip is long rather than loud.

Bottled unfiltered, it remains milky light and shows a fine layer of yeast at the bottom. This tells you that nothing has been taken away from what the wine produced itself. The dark clay bottle protects it from light and keeps the temperature more stable, which visibly benefits a bottling with no added sulfur.

Harvested in early September, aged in clay

It was harvested by hand in early September 2022—early enough for the grapes to bring their tension into the cellar. This is a bit later than its predecessor, whose harvest already extended into August, and as a result, the vintage remains tauter.

The berries lay on their skins for 13 days before the basket press gently separated them. Exactly this time span gives the vintage its coppery-orange color and tart edge. Fermentation began spontaneously, without added yeast, solely with what comes from the vineyard.

The wine then rested in the amphora for nine months, on its own lees and significantly shorter than its predecessor. This keeps it lighter and more agile, but costs it a bit of depth. In mid-June 2023, it went into the bottle unfiltered and without added sulfur, from vineyards that were just being converted to biodynamic cultivation at the time.

Roasted vegetables, smoked fish, and young mountain cheese

Baked cauliflower with brown butter meets it at eye level because roasted aromas and bitter substances speak the same language and neither drowns out the other.

Smoked trout with horseradish finds a cushion in the creaminess, and young mountain cheese latches onto the herbal side of the wine. At room temperature, it shows more fragrance than ice-cold, because the cold takes away its fruit and leaves only the bitterness.

How the same wine acts after more time in the cellar is shown by the Muscat Freyheit 2019 with its thirteen months in the amphora. Related bottles with long skin contact times can be found in Orange Wine, and the entire range of the winery in Weingut Gernot Heinrich.

Muscat Freyheit – a natural wine and its values

• Origin: Natural wine from Austria
• Grape variety: 85% Muskat Ottonel, 15% Pinot Blanc
• 12.0% Vol. alcohol
• 5.1 g/l acidity
• 1.1 g/l residual sugar

Organic control body AT-BIO-402 – Austrian Agriculture