2014 Moric Burgenland Blaufränkisch

Moric

Austria / Burgenland / Moric

This wine has been produced from 8- to 50-year-old vines from soils of limestone, primary rock, and loam in Neckenmarkt and Lutzmannsburg. The clarity of this wine is reinforced by its length and structure, which give it balance and ageing-potential. Harvested at a yield of 25 hectolitres per hectare, it is fermented with indigenous yeast over 17 to 21 days in stainless steel and open vats. Natural MLF and élevage in 600-4500 litre casks for 13 months. No fining, filtration or additives, except tiny quantities of sulfites. As a result, all Moric wines are vegan-friendly.

April, 2016

Gary Walsh

The Wine Front

91 points

Smoke and wet undergrowth, white pepper and weeds, blue fruit, aniseed and flowers. It’s a lighter, mulchier iteration of this wine, and yet, it’s strangely compelling. Blue fruits, spice and perfume, distinct tangy ‘minerally’ acidity with a brisk, rain-washed cool feel, subtle chalky tannin, and a crisp almost metallic (in a good way) finish. Refreshing and charismatic. Perhaps not for everyone, but a wine of detail, delicacy, and intrigue for me.

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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.