Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark – from Weingut Wohlmuth

The Wohlmuth Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark 2022 is a wonderfully dry white wine from Styria in Austria. The Sauvignon Blanc from Weingut Wohlmuth is an elegant representative of its grape variety, rather restrained on the nose, but on the palate, it reveals its aromatic spectrum of ripe yellow fruits like apricots and mirabelles, as well as red fruits like red currants. A touch of vegetable notes, sweet red pepper, and always the fine slate spice, a wonderfully cool minerality, finesse, and precision, resonate throughout. This classic wine demonstrates the ingenious interplay of grape variety, soil, location, and winemaking craftsmanship, which has a 200-year-old tradition at the Wohlmuth family's winery.

Wohlmuth – Wine Production

The Sauvignon Blanc vines are planted on absolutely steep vineyard slopes on phyllitic slate soils, reddish and black in color. This slate is thinly layered, sometimes a little more compact with inclusions of quartz, sericite, and potash feldspar. Under the influence of the Illyrian climate, which brings warm winds from the Mediterranean and cool winds from the northern Alps to Kitzeck in Southern Styria, and with much manual labor on the steep slopes, which requires an admirable connection to the homeland, this dry white wine with a distinctive, complex fruit expression is produced.

All grapes are selectively hand-picked. Since the vineyards are located around the winery, long transport routes are not necessary. After a maceration period of 6-14 hours, slow temperature-controlled fermentation takes place at approx. 20 degrees Celsius. To preserve the aromaticity and freshness, the wine is aged on fine lees in stainless steel tanks until bottling at the end of February.

Even though the Sauvignon Blanc grape variety does not have such a long tradition in Styria, it has found a place there where it finds optimal conditions and produces wines of international stature. The grape variety originates from a cross between Traminer and Chenin Blanc and originally comes from the Loire. It has small, densely packed berries. Its vigorous growth requires good canopy management, as its aromatic compounds, methoxypyrazines and mercaptans, are light-sensitive. Its characteristic bouquet ranges from grassy, green-fruity, and notes of bell pepper in not fully ripe grapes to an expressive aromatic diversity of elderflower, gooseberry, cassis, and tropical fruits like passion fruit in ripe harvested grapes. In Styria, magnificent top wines with great development potential are produced, which are among the best worldwide.

The Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark is a classic regional wine from the Southern Styrian region.

The appealing modern label is designed each year by a different young artist. The 2022 vintage is accompanied by a painting by Laura Stadtegger, who sees the characteristic of her paintings in the movement between the real and imaginary world. Fascinated by myths and archetypes, she sees her art as messages that concern people worldwide. The artist, originally from Graz, born in 1984, completed her studies in applied arts at the University of Vienna, with a year abroad at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She then lived in Amsterdam for a while before moving her studio to Munich in 2011. Her works can be admired in exhibitions, such as in London in 2023.

Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark – a wine and its values

• Origin Wine from Austria
• Growing region Southern Styria
• Grape variety Sauvignon Blanc
• vegan
• sustainably certified
• 12.5 % vol. alcohol
• 6.5 g/l acidity
• 2.2 g/l residual sugar