2015 Rosi Schuster Blaufränkisch

Rosi Schuster

Austria / Burgenland / Rosi Schuster

2015 saw perfect weather conditions during harvest. The challenge was to bring ripe grapes in before they started to get overripe. The vineyards for this are in Sankt Margarethen and Zagersdorf but for this wine Hannes Schuster uses more young vineyards (between 10 and 25 years old). The must is spontaneously fermented in stainless steel tanks and aged in big oak barrels for 18 months. It's bottled without fining and without filtration.

Dark in colour, with earth, spice and brambly fruit on the nose. Pure on the palate in a way that seems more honest than polished, shooting straight to the fruit and those peppery, gravelly, briary characters that Blaufränkisch does so well. Cleansing acidity and squeaky tannins make for a lively, moreish finale. – Ed Merrison, CellarHand

February, 2018

Gary Walsh

The Wine Front

91 points

Peaty, meaty, pepper and spice, but with a core of juice bramble fruit. It’s medium bodied with spiced sour cherry flavour, fine but silty tannin, and a lively finish that closes with a sweet orange tang and dried herb. This is a delicious drink, with a point of difference.

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About Rosi Schuster

The winery was founded in 1979, the year that the parents of winemaker Hannes Schuster got married. The estate works with around 11 hectares of vines, the oldest of which are 60 years old. For a few years now Hannes and his mother Rosi have been focusing on Sankt Laurent, Blaufränkisch and Rotburger. They farm the vineyards organically and pursue small yields of exceptional fruit. Grapes from the younger vineyard are used for their expressions of Burgenland Blaufränkisch, Burgenland Sankt Laurent and Burgenland Rotburger. These three wines are their interpretation of a classically styled regional wine.
Musts are fermented gently in wooden or stainless steel open-top fermenters. Both alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are spontaneous. The soils are quite diverse because the Schusters work in various villages in the surrounding areas. In the main these are sandy, loamy soils, limestone soils and clay-loam soils, with slate featuring to a lesser extent.

About

Hannes Schuster took on running the estate alongside his mother Rosi in 2005. Since then he's established his reputation by pushing the vineyards towards organic production and in 2011 winning Gault & Millau Austrian Wine of the Year for his 2009 Blaufränkisch Rusterberg. In the latest edition of Pocket Wine Book, English wine authority Hugh Johnson handed Hannes and the estate a three-star rating, praising his "refined Blaufrankisch" and "sappy, complex St Laurent".