Ried Spitzerberg

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Dorli Muhr cultivates ten hectares of Blaufrankisch on the south-facing slope of the Spitzerberg. It is a very special place with extremely poor soils of limestone, where the annual rainfall does not usually exceed 300 to 500mm. The sandy limestone soils have little capacity for retaining the water, which very often comes in the form of heavy thunderstorms during the month of June. In summer the Spitzerberg very often represents the heat peak of Austria’s continental climate, suffering 35 degrees and higher for weeks. 

The ten hectares of Blaufrankisch are divided among more than twenty parcels of different ages, with slightly different exposition. Dorli tries to pick, vinify and mature them separately in order to observe their evolution. Every year the finest and most expressive (yet not the most massive) wines are made from the oldest vines, which are between 40-60 years old. Dorli selects and blends these finest wines and calls it Spitzerberg, while the wines from younger vines are bottled as Samt & Seide. 

During the warm summer the Blaufrankisch vines just ‘shut themselves down’ and the grapes stop maturing until the first humid autumn morning provides some nutrition. These very challenging natural conditions result in wines marked by aromas and fruit characteristics which are unique: charming aromas of red berries, violets and a spicy touch of what we tend to describe as cumin. Blaufrankisch is always characterised by a rather pronounced acidity, which also guarantees a slow evolution in the bottle and a very long life. Dorli doesn’t use sulphur on the grapes; no selected yeasts and no pumps or other mechanical tools during maceration. A portion of the harvest is trodden by foot, while the rest is fermented in open vats, the same way as one hundred years ago. No cooling or heating up of the must, and only very gentle soutirage during the two years of maturation in the barrel. 

2015 was an extremely dry and hot summer. The challenge was to conserve precise fruit, refreshing acidity and the typical agile grace that is customarily provided by limestone. Precise selection of fruit resulted in a very concentrated, compact wine, which is still very nicely balanced by an elegant minerality, with fresh aromas of red fruits, silky tannins and a very precise acidity.