Award winners Range of the Year

Each year in spring, Wein-Plus announces the awards for the Range of the Year for Austrian wines!

This is done to honour those producers who managed to present the best range of wines for their growing region in the past year, in terms of outstanding quality.

The following awards were presented on 18th March 2007:

Weingut Hans Igler, Burgenland

Few people can bridge the gap between tradition and modern style as well as Waltraud Reisner-Igler. Polished and approachable at first taste, with spicy oak, these are frequently the first impressions, yet they generally also have exceptional depth and clearly show their origins. The mineral character typical of the region is already evident in most of the entry-level wines, and is beautifully displayed in the top-level wines. In fact, the top wines have few competitors in Austria. The standard is set by the Blaufränkisch Biiri and the Juwel, and particularly by the „Ab Ericio“ blend.

 

 

 

Weingut Jurtschitsch Sonnhof, Niederösterreich

An outstanding vintage for the Jurtschitsch family, headed up by a superb Riesling Heiligenstein and two great Veltliner wines. The quality of this estate in the current vintage leaves absolutely nothing to be desired, and the wines are also unique in terms of style. However, the top-level wines need time. They require either long aeration, or you should mature them for a while before opening them. They will reward you with a depth and complexity that is rarely found even in the regions along the Danube, which sport a number of top-quality wines.

The following awards were presented on 18th March 2007:

Weingut Leitner, Gols, Burgenland

The Leitner estate has been owned by the family for many generations. Melitta and Matthias Leitner took over the estate in 1975, and continued running it as a part-time operation until 1990. The decisive change in policy – to produce high quality and to bottle the wines under an own label - dates back to the early Eighties. First national and international awards, which started coming in from 1985 onwards, confirmed that the quality-orientated strategy was the right one. The big change then took place in 1991, when Matthias Leitner made the jump from being a part-time wine producer to being a full-time one. During this period, the total vineyard area of the estate has increased to around 10,5 hectares. His son Gernot Leitner has also been working in the business full-time since early 2003.

Right from the word go, the wines produced by Matthias Leitner were characterised by body and mineral structure. Long before anybody started talking about terroir, the concept was clearly evident in these wines. The quest to join the top ranks of wine producers was taken on quite rapidly as a challenge, although these efforts were initially often misunderstood. It took quite some time for some of the critics and reviewers to give the correct – that is, high – ratings to wines that were so individualistic and concentrated, wines that were at the same time firm with a mineral structure. Nevertheless, Matthias Leitner continued undaunted on his chosen path, and devoted all his passion and attention to his best vineyard sites. The Ungerberg, Salzberg, Schafleiten and Satz sites are all on south- or south-east-facing slopes with a view of Lake Neusiedl on sand and clay, resp. on decomposed shell limestone soils. This mineral component gives particularly the red wines concentration and a distinct character. The only white wine sourced from the Salzberg site is also a firmly structured, full-bodied, minerally wine. While Matthias Leitner appears tranquil to those around him, he certainly does not lack emotion where his work is concerned, and this is reflected directly in the wines. It is certainly also a benefit that son Gernot is on hand as an additional and extremely able cellar master. The members of the Leitner family are pleasant, likeable people, a living symbol for the aspiring and increasingly impressive wine culture of the Burgenland region, and of Austria as a whole.

Weingut Rudi Pichler, Wösendorf, Niederösterreich

Rudi Pichler is a quiet, unassuming man who prefers to let his wines and his customers do the talking at presentations and trade fairs. All would agree on this, and it does by and large reflect the truth. However, one would often wish that some of the media wizards in the industry would have just 10 per cent of his backbone, of his sense of direction, his carefully-dosed flexibility, and particularly of his ability to achieve his goals.

Those who know Rudi Pichler a little better will be aware of his tremendous inner strength. He does not consider himself to be a farmer in the usual sense, although his vineyards are among the best-kept in a region that has many beautiful vineyards to show off. It comes as no surprise that his erstwhile teachers and examples are from the Wachau region, producers who are the bedrock of the region, with a firm dedication both to high quality and to regional character. Walk with him through his vineyards if you want to see his full passion for wine-making and for the region come through. He is also a traditionalist in the true sense of the word, his motto is: „Tradition does not mean sitting in the ashes, it means passing on the fire“.

In the true sense of the word his style of vinification is traditional, without any modern aids or great fanfares, with a minimum of intervention and particularly without any stretching to please any particular style, whether with his wines nor with regard to himself. It is thus only natural that Rudi Pichlers wines, from the more basic ones right up to the best have a real soul of their own, with the often cited terroir making up only a part of the whole. Most of them are not easy to understand, much less can or should they be consumed thoughtlessly, as is the modern trend. They are complex with many layers, both elegant and crisp, subtle and at the same time displaying a breathtaking mineral structure. There is a bit of work involved in understanding and appreciating these wines. At the same time, this character also ensures they are not downgraded to being cult wines for those who have the money to buy the big names.

The vineyard area totals 10,5 hectares in the best vineyard sites of the Wachau, such as Achleiten, Hochrain, Kirchweg, Kollmütz and Steinriegel, practically all of them terraced sites. In spite of the work involved in tending these sites, they are particularly close to Rudi Pichlers heart. It is said that the total production is around 65 000 bottles annually. It really is not that important, as there is never enough available of Rudi Pichlers fine wines.

Weingut Wieninger, Wien

The estate is located in Stammersdorf, a section of the 21st precinct of Vienna, Floridsdorf, in the north-west of the federal capital city. Until quite recently, this was a region that had a very specific reputation among the wine-lovers of Vienna. Almost as good as Vienna, which means the wines “on this side of the Danube”, almost as bracingly fresh as the wines from Brünnerstraßel, and what’s more, just as inexpensive. An insider’s tip, as it were, not to be divulged to strangers. This applied only until Fritz Wieninger took over at the helm of the wine estate of the same name. A fresh wind started blowing here from the 1980’s onward, this has developed to become a Viennese storm, that is a powerful but not disastrous storm. Right up in the front seats is Fritz Wieninger, with a good education in his background, convinced already as a young man that firstly his region is Vienna (correct) and secondly that his sites are among the best in this city, which has many good vineyard sites (also correct).

He soon attracted attention with his full-bodied Chardonnay, characterised by strong mineral notes and some oak, wines that can compete on an international level, but are still difficult to compare to other wines from the region. This is all linked to the specific sites and their climatic conditions, and also to the character and personality of the wine-maker. Although the Grüner Veltliner is naturally also the leading variety in Vienna, Fritz Wieninger’s reputation, initially on a regional and later on an international level, was built on his Chardonnays, and later also on a second variety, Pinot Noir. A stepchild in this region, indeed in the whole of Austria. This is not surprising considering its fussy, pretentious demands in the vineyard, a variety that does not allow for any mistakes, and frequently appears not to respond to what one considers right for it. Just the right kind of challenge for Fritz Wieninger. One might have expected that, with awards and accolades for these exceptional wines piling up, the wine-maker might have been content to take things a little easier. In particular considering the fact that Fritz Wieninger was one of the leafing initiators of a marketing and advertising campaign for Viennese wine, a campaign that is still successfully in place today.

Well, if there had not been that slight irritation (and challenge): the dream of the perfect Viennese Grüner Veltliner. Slowly and over time, almost unnoticed initially by the broad public, some 6 hectares of that most classical of all Viennese vineyard sites, the Nussberg, were acquired. Eventually Fritz Wieninger had what he wanted: the vineyard sites and the potential. It is on this instrument that he has been playing one solo after the other for a number of years, with great virtuosity developing ever more perfect interpretations of the leading Austrian variety. By now the total vineyard area of the estate is around 25 hectares, and one cannot help suspecting there are constantly new plans afoot. And whatever is planned is likely to be perfect again, just as the wines of recent vintages have been, with practically no variations in terms of vintage problems, and that, in our eyes, is a very special achievement.

Where a wine-growing region is not stated, we were unable to find a range that was so convincing as to cause us to award the prize.

The award „Range of the Year“ refers to the range presented in the year prior to the award. It is thus not necessarily restricted to the very latest available vintage. The prerequisite for the award is that the range is, in my opinion, the best range in a particular wine-growing region. For this reason, the award may be made repeatedly in succession to the same estate. Should two estates have presented ranges of equal quality, the decision on the winner will be taken with a view to the completeness of the ranges. If no differentiation is possible on this basis, preference will be given to an estate that has not previously won the award. If this criterion fails as well, the award will be made to both producers." 

Marcus Hofschuster