Blaufränkisch – Saybritz – 2018

Wachter-Wiesler – Blaufränkisch Saybritz – Eisenberg DAC Reserve

The Wachter-Wiesler Blaufränkisch Saybritz 2018 Eisenberg DAC Reserve is an organic red wine from the Saybritz vineyard in southern Burgenland, Austria. This single-vineyard red wine made from Blaufränkisch grapes impressively showcases its unique terroir: the Eisenberg. Around the Eisenberg, with its iron-rich soils, diverse rock formations and soil compositions can be found in a very small area: oxidized green schist, quartz phyllite, calcareous schist, or serpentinite. This red wine from the region, which was only declared a DAC for origin-typical wine in 2010, is distinctive, mineral-spicy, cool, precise with vibrant acidity and feminine tannin structure.

On the nose, the garnet-red Blaufränkisch exudes dark berries, midnight-black blackberries, cassis, tart sloe, meeting a piquant herbal spice, with forest floor and fermented pepper joining in. On the palate, the single-vineyard wine is juicy, with cool minerality, vibrantly delicate yet well-structured, salty on the finish. The Wachter-Wiesler Blaufränkisch Saybritz is a red wine of quiet grandeur with immense aging potential, if one can only muster the necessary patience.

With great talent and careful intuition, the winemaker succeeds in creating a red wine of the finest caliber, a magnificent ambassador of its extraordinary terroir, which demonstrates the great passion of Wachter-Wiesler for their soils and their Blaufränkisch grape variety, and which is characterized more by finesse and complexity than by opulence. A wine with great aging potential, to which one can completely surrender.

The Sybritz 2018 ranks 75th in James Suckling's list of Top 100 Wines of Austria 2021.

"Christoph Wachter has catapulted the family business among Austria's best Blaufränkisch producers in a very short time. He currently cultivates the boldest, most edgy, most puristic style around the Eisenberg," Sascha Speicher describes his impressions of Wachter-Wiesler wines from the magical Eisenberg.

Saybritz Eisenberg DAC Reserve – Winemaking

Single-vineyard Blaufränkisch wines like the Saybritz represent the pinnacle of the Wachter-Wiesler winery. Single-vineyard wines from old vines, deeply rooted in the very special (not to say: unparalleled) soil structures of the Eisenberg. Lowest Intervention Wines with guaranteed aging potential and enormous development potential, intended to be companions for decades. Great wines that grow and constantly develop in all their facets from year to year and are among the great regional red wines of Austria.

The steep vineyards for this wine are located on the upper Eisenberg and face south-southeast. The deep-rooted, sometimes 40-60 year old vines grow protected from the weather by the forest on ancient green schist from the Penninicum, covered with humic loam. The parent material of the soil is approx. 10 million years old. The vineyards are pampered by the sun, stony and partly very steep and, in addition to the special soils, are shaped by the Pannonian-Illyrian climate. Christoph Wachter cultivates the vineyards of the Wachter-Wiesler winery organically-biologically and with a lot of manual work and care. The Blaufränkisch grapes, hand-picked from mid-September to mid-October 2018, remain on the mash for 24 days in wooden fermentation vats, ferment spontaneously with natural vineyard yeasts and are then gently pressed. Afterwards, they undergo malolactic fermentation and mature for 22 months in traditional, large wooden barrels (2000l). Bottled unfined and unfiltered in summer 2021.

Blaufränkisch – A Wine and its Values

• Origin Wine from Austria
• Growing region Burgenland
• Site Saybritz
• Eisenberg DAC Reserve
• Grape variety Blaufränkisch
• 13% Vol. Alcohol
• 5.8 g/l Acidity
• 1.0 g/l Residual sugar
  

Organic inspection body AT-BIO-402 – Austrian Agriculture