A blog devoted to exploring wines made from unusual grape varieties and/or grown in unfamiliar regions all over the world. All wines are purchased by me from shops in the Boston metro area or directly from wineries that I have visited. If a reviewed bottle is a free sample, that fact is acknowledged prior to the bottle's review. I do not receive any compensation from any of the wineries, wine shops or companies that I mention on the blog.
Showing posts with label Rotgipfler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rotgipfler. Show all posts

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Rotgipfler - Thermenregion, Austria

Yesterday we took a look at a wine from Austria called Gumpoldskirchen that is made from Rotgipfler and Zierfandler grapes.  Today and tomorrow we're going to take a closer look at each of those grapes, starting with Rotgipfler today.

Rotgipfler is a white wine grape that is thought to be indigenous to the Thermenregion of Austria (located in the eastern part of the country, just south of Vienna), though Philipp Blom, in his The Wines of Austria, indicates that it may actually be from Styria originally, just south of Thermenregion.  Its parentage has been confirmed as a spontaneous crossing between Traminer (aka Savagnin) and Roter Veltliner (Sefc, K.M., Steinkellner, H., Glossl, J., Kampfer, S., Regner, F. (1998). Reconstruction of a grapevine pedigree by microsatellite analysis.  Theoretical and Applied Genetics. (97) 227-231).  The Roter Veltliner link may lead you to believe that this grape is also related to the Austrian specialty Grüner Veltliner, which is sometimes known by the name Weissgipfler, but it turns out that that's probably not true (there has been no proven link between Roter Veltliner and Grüner Veltliner).  The name Rotgipfler has something to do with redness somewhere on the vine (rot being the German word for red), though different sources seem to disagree about precisely where this redness is occurring.  Some say that it is the tips of the leaves that are red, some say it is the shoots that are red, while the winery's fact sheet seems to give a literal translation of "red shoot-apex," whatever that means. Something on the vine that is not the grapes is red, that much we know for sure, and that's where the grape's name comes from.

It is considered something of an also-ran in the Thermenregion by outside observers, with nearly every critical source starting out their evaluation of the grape by unfavorably comparing it to its running-mate, Zierfandler.  Jancis Robinson (in The Oxford Companion to Wine) describes it as "the marginally less noble of the two," while Blom is less equivocal in his statement that it "is certainly the less noble of the two."  Robinson offers no support for her declaration of the grape's inferiority, while Blom's reasons seem to be linked more to the fact that the grape is fairly difficult in the vineyard.  He points to the grape's habit of ripening late (though it still ripens earlier than Zierfandler, a fact passed over in silence by Blom), its fussiness in terms of its soil and climate preferences, and its sensitivity to wind-chill and botrytis before concluding: "it can produce some full-bodied wines with marked acidity, golden colour, and characteristic aromas of clementines and almonds.  Often, though, it produces light and fresh wines that are not remarkable in terms of sophistication and complexity."

The Johanneshof Reinisch Winery
Whatever the critics believe, the vine is planted on pretty much the same amount of land as Zierfandler in the Thermenregion (just over 100 hectares), and the local winemakers seem to think that it's good enough to stand on its own.  Johanneshof Reinisch is one of those local producers.  They are a family owned estate that has been producing wine in this region for four generations, starting with a meager half hectare in 1923 that grew to the over 40 ha spread (broken up over several regions) that they farm today.  The majority of their plantings are red wine grapes, with about 65% of their vineyard area dedicated to red grapes (especially Pinot Noir and St. Laurent) and the remaining 35% to white.  A brand new winemaking facility was built in 1995 and the winery continues to walk the line between tradition (large neutral oak barrels and natural fermentation) and modernism (temperature controlled stainless steel and high-tech mechanical sorting and pressing equipment).

I was sent a sample bottle of the 2010 Johanneshof Reinisch Rotgipfler by the good people at Circo Vino.  They tell me this bottle retails for about $20 and is available in the NY, NJ, IL, CA, FL, OR, and WA markets with the possibility of Massachusetts distribution in the near future.  Some batches of this wine undergo spontaneous wild yeast fermentation, but all batches are kept on their lees for about four months after fermentation stops and the batches are blended together and bottled.  In the glass, this wine was a pale silvery lemon color with greenish tints.  The nose was nicely aromatic with lemony citrus, ripe pear, green apple and white flowers.  The wine's body was on the lighter side of medium with medium acidity.  There was nice lemony and light apple fruit and a very clean, very refreshing minerality that kept me reaching for the glass.  This wine made me long for the warmer days of summer (which I don't often do) and had me wistfully looking out my window at the gloomy Boston October I found myself in.  Fans of lighter Italian Pinot Grigio will find a lot to like here.  I kept imagining myself eating raw oysters on the half-shell with just a twist of lemon on them while I was drinking this. It's not the most complex wine you'll ever drink, but it's incredibly refreshing and there's always a spot in my cellar for wines like that.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Gumpoldskirchen - Thermenregion, Austria

The Village of Gumpoldskirchen
Today's post is a first for Fringe Wine.  The bottle that I will be looking at today was kindly provided as a sample by Circo Vino, an importer located in Evanston, Illinois, and is the first free sample that I've ever been sent.  They sent two bottles my way, this one and a varietal Rotgipfler which I will be examining tomorrow.  I know there's a lot of hullabaloo surrounding wine writers/critics/bloggers and the acknowledgement of free stuff, so I just want to put it right here up top.  This bottle was a free sample.  That said, I plan to evaluate it exactly the same way as if I paid retail price for it.

The title of today's post, Gumpoldskirchen, doesn't refer to a grape name, but rather to a place.  That place is the village of Gumpoldskirchen, located in the Thermenregion of eastern Austria (so named for the many spas or thermen found here), about 20 miles south of Vienna.  This region's climate is marked by hot summers, cold winters, and moderate rainfall.  The soils are littered with ancient marine fossils and, in general, are marked by heavy loam, gravel and clay.  This village was one of the shining stars of Austria and was at the forefront of quality production in the 18th and 19th Centuries.  Even into the early 20th Century, the wine from here was so well thought of that it was served at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1947 and, further, was served at a 1961 summit meeting in Vienna between president John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev.  The wines made within the Gumpoldskirchen district were known as Gumpoldskirchen Königswein, or the King's wine, a reflection of their reputation and lofty status.

And then disaster struck.  In 1985, a few wineries in Austria were caught adding diethylene glycol, one of the main ingredients in antifreeze, to their wines in order to boost their body and sweetness.  The Austrian classification system is very similar to Germany's and is based on the sugar content of the grape must prior to fermentation. It was (and is) illegal to add any sugar to the fermenting must in order to boost your wine into a higher classification tier. The problem that the Austrian producers had was that many of them had contracts that specified that they had to provide a certain amount of wine from each tier to their buyers and when a series of cool vintages struck in the early 1980's, the grapes weren't able to ripen fully and the producers were stuck with an excess of wine at the lower tiers and a dearth of wine at the higher ones.  Simply adding sugar would have raised the overall sweetness level of the wine (illegally), but the body of the finished wine would be thinner and it would be more apparent than some doctoring had taken place.  Diethylene glycol tastes sweet and is viscous, meaning that if it were added to the must, the wine would taste sweeter and have the unctuous texture that consumers would expect to find in wines in those quality tiers.  Diethylene glycol also happens to be toxic and when the adulteration was discovered and brought to light in 1985, it ignited a huge scandal that had a devastating effect on the Austrian wine industry.  Exports dropped 90% virtually overnight and did not reach their pre-1985 levels until 2001.

The village of Gumpoldskirchen was not directly implicated in the scandal, but the tarring brush was wide and the wine industry across all of Austria suffered greatly and equally for the transgressions of a very few.  It has recovered, as has the rest of the Austrian wine industry, over the past few years, though it would be difficult to say that the current fame of Gumpoldskirchen in particular matches its illustrious past.  Gottfried Schellmann made wines in the Gumpoldskirchen region for over forty years, long enough to experience both the zenith and nadir of Austria's vinous reputation.  He owned nine hectares of vineyard land scattered throughout the Gumpoldskirchen region and was a driving force in attempting to elevate the reputation of these wines to their former glory.  He is quoted as saying "the pinnacle has not yet been reached in the Thermenregion," and one can imagine that the statement is not tied to any particular time, but is rather intended as a motto for ever striving to greater things.
Fred Loimer

And then there's Fred Loimer, a well-regarded grower and winemaker from the Kamptal region of Austria.  Fred ventured into the Thermenregion in 2002 looking for new challenges and new opportunities in the different climate and with the different indigenous grapes that the Thermenregion offers.  Fred and Gottfried partnered up in 2002 and when Gottfried passed away in 2005, Fred stepped into an ownership role with the Schellmann properties and has continued to make wines from their estate fruit.  All of the vineyards in the Gumpoldsregion that are bottled under the Schellmann label are biodynamically farmed and Fred is one of the founding members of the "Respect" association of biodynamic farmers in the region.

There are several different wines in the Schellmann portfolio, but perhaps the most interesting is the basic Gumpoldskirchen cuveé.  The wine is based on the Michsatz, a traditional field blend from the region that consists of Rotgipfler, Zierfandler, Muskateller, Traminer (our old friend Savagnin), and Riesling.  In the next few days, I'll be posting more about Rotgipfler and Zierfandler as I was also generously given varietal bottlings of these two grapes.  Muskateller is the Austrian word for the local member of the Muscat family of grapes, and it will also likely get its own mention here before too long.

The bulk of the Gumpoldskirchen cuveé is made up of Rotgipfler and Zierfandler, a classic blend in the Thermenregion that is called Spätrot Rotgipfler when they are the only two grapes used.  According to the winery's fact sheet (in German, as the English version contains a typo here), this bottling has a touch of Muskateller and Traminer, but no Riesling in it.  The grapes are crushed and left to macerate with the skins for a short period of time before being pressed.  Fermentation takes place in both stainless steel and large, neutral oak barrels, where the wines are matured for a further eight months after fermentation ends.

The wine I was offered was the 2008 Gumpoldskirchen cuveé, which I am told retails for about $25.  The wine is not currently available in Massachusetts, but should be by the end of the year.  It is available in NY, NJ, IL, CA, FL, OR, and WA.  In the glass, the wine was a medium lemon color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with juicy pear, ripe grapefruit, honeysuckle flower and a distinct Muscat-like peachy, flowery smell.  I am a sucker for intensely aromatic white wines and this was pushing all the right buttons for me.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were racy grapefruit and orange citrus flavors with honeysuckle flowers and a bitter, pithy finish.  There was a distinctive chalky kind of minerality to the wine that I don't always find welcome (hello there Chasselas), but here, the primary fruit flavors were well defined enough that the chalkiness wasn't to the wine's detriment (whether it's to the wine's benefit is a more personal question that you should probably answer for yourself).  As the wine warmed and opened up, nectarine stonefruit started to become more apparent and the Muscat-like character calmed down a bit.  The wine gives the sense of being perhaps a bit off-dry, but the residual sugar content is purportedly only 2.9 g/l, so it's probably just the ripe fruit flavors here that are contributing to the illusion.  Overall, this was a very enjoyable wine that is definitely suited for fans of interesting, complex, aromatic whites like Muscat or Riesling.