Ried Spitzerberg – Obere Roterd 1ÖTW 2021
Learn More About This Wine
The Obere Roterd is a sub-vineyard on the Spitzerberg with a total surface of three hectares. It is situated on the western part of the slope, and stretches like a tiny strip on an altitude between 210 and 240 metres, bordering the bushes of the natural reserve. The soil is sandy, very dry limestone, including also bigger and smaller pieces of limestone. The wines of Obere Roterd are – like nearly all wines from Spitzerberg – marked by elegant freshness and a very dense structure. Typical and unique for this sub-vineyard is a creamy, silky texture, which delivers its special character of charme to the wines.
Weingut Dorli Muhr cultivates five vineyard parcels of Blaufrankisch on the Obere Roterd with a total surface of 1.3 hectares (and another 0.5 hectares of Syrah). The vines were planted between 1965 and 2004, which guarantees a wonderful vertical complexity to the wine. For this wine, they only use two plots of old vines, that are organically cultivated and show a quite distinctive elegance and creaminess. Only 800 bottles are produced each year.
The grapes are hand harvested and hand selected, which is a lot of work with the old vines, but essential. The grapes are fermented in open vats and pushed down by hand. The spontaneous fermentation proceeds very slowly and at room temperature; the must is neither heated nor cooled. This guarantees wines that are very precise and generously aromatic. After about twenty days, the wine is pressed and then matured in 600-litre wooden casks. No new wood is used, in order to avoid masking the expressive fruit of the Blaufrankisch. After two years in oak, the wine is bottled without filtration and matures for another year in bottle before it is released.
2021 is a wonderful, full bodied vintage, very dense yet fresh.
Spring was long and dry, and mostly quite cool so that the bud break was rather late – an advantage regarding late frosts. Summer showed some smaller rainfalls now and then, and showed some cooler weeks as well. This led to a very balanced, regular maturation without any stress. In autumn, there were long sunny and dry weeks which brought wonderfully mature and aromatically intense grapes. A wonderful complex vintage, a bit more powerful than the previous year.
