2013 Moric Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben Blaufränkisch

Moric

Austria / Burgenland / Moric

This wine represents a selection made from the oldest vines and the best sites in Lutzmannsburg. The Lutzmannsburger plateau arose on top of a primordial volcano, and here the idyllic landscape encompasses a variety of soils: sand, clay and loam, in part lying above limestone subsoils. These confer an incomparably unique expression upon the Blaufränkisch, which manifests Itself ideally in this wine. This wine has been harvested from ten separate parcels, all picked and fermented separately. After ten months élevage in casks, the initial blend is made, upon which the wine enjoys an additional twelve months in the barrel.
60-100+ year old vines. 17 hectolitres per hectare yield. 23-28 days maceration, spontaneous fermentation in open fermenters and wooden vats. 24 months élevage in 500-4000 litre casks. No fining. No filtration. No additives, except tiny quantities of sulfites. As a result of that, all of the Moric wines are vegan.

June, 2016

Stephan Reinhardt

Wine Advocate

95+ points

Dark in color, the 2013 Blaufränkisch Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben straightforwardly communicates its limestone terroir with old vines 80 to 110 years old. This wine shows an outrageous purity, finesse and freshness on the nose which is HD (high precision) and reveals associations of crushed limestones, dashes of lime juice, lemon peel/oil, candied bitter oranges, pink grapefruit, stone fruits (yellow plums, red vineyard peaches), juniper, herbs and floral aromas in a very delicate, almost unreal way. There is a great finesse and a unexperienced freshness on the silky textured palate which elevates this intense and concentrated, full-bodied and persistently juicy and very persistent wine that never loses its purity and remarkable freshness. This is an extremely stimulating and finesse-full Blaufränkisch with a refreshing tannin and acidity grip. This red never comes down to earth, but rather seems ethereal like a perfume and versatile like a dream. This is pure Blaufränkisch surrealism with even more finesse and freshness than the young Neckenmarkter Alte Reben! The endless aftertaste indicates red wild cherries and wild berries. Shame on you if you are not curious enough to taste the wine world's next big thing.

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About Moric

For more than a decade, winemaker Roland Velich made an intense study of the world's greatest wines of terroir with the explicit goal of finding “that thing”, as he puts it, that a wine must possess in order to achieve greatness. When he felt he'd learned enough, he set out to make an Austrian red wine that belonged in the same pantheon as the great Grand Cru Burgundies, the Northern Rhône and the legendary vineyards of Barolo. So began the Moric project. Its medium is Blaufränkisch, expressed through ancient vines in a challenging growing region, meticulous biodynamic viticulture, obsessive sorting and fairly primitive winemaking techniques. The Burgenland Blaufränkisch is a brilliant starting point, while this beguiling variety reaches its zenith in the old-vine wines from Lutzmannsburg and Neckenmarkt.

About

Roland Velich comes from a Burgenland winemaking family but initially he worked as a croupier. It was 2001 when he kicked off the Moric project, working with seriously old vines that perhaps no one believed in quite as much as him. His zeal for this terroir and the Blaufränkisch grape has mercifully been matched by vision and skill. "Roland Velich makes the best Blaufränkisch on the planet. Full stop," says Jancis Robinson Purple Pages contributor, Alder Yarrow. Meanwhile this is also the favourite Blaufränkisch producer of Eric Asimov, the New York Times wine correspondent. "Moric, is a star in this world," he proclaims. And indeed he is.