TN: 2008 Moric Blaufränkisch (Austria, Burgenland, Mittelburgenland)

WINE TALK
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  • 2008 Moric Blaufränkisch - Austria, Burgenland, Mittelburgenland (4/4/2011)
    My first Blaufrankisch gets a thumbs up. It reminded me of high quality gamay, pinot noir, and syrah (from the N. Rhone) blended together.
    The nose is complex with lots of pepper, cherry fruit, earth, herbs, and a really delicate floral note.
    On the palate, the acidity is quite high (for a red). The cherry fruit is now sour - but in a good way- even though it demands food to be tamed.
    Tannins appear soft but they are there lurking beneath the fruit and masked by the vibrant acidity.
    Solid length.
    12.5% Alcohol
    Solid B+ if you like this style of wine - which I do.
    Happy to have experimented.

Posted from CellarTracker

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Note On night 2 the wine is equally good. :slight_smile:

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A delicious wine for red Burg lovers Kim, thanks for the note.
Best Regards
Jeremy

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Kim - which did you have?

The basic bottling is becoming my go-to wine at around $25. He also makes the Neckenmarkt Alte Reben at around $140 or so that’s a LOT woodier and to me, not worth it. And the Jagini Zagersdorf for about $50 or so. I stuck all three into a BF tasting I did a couple weeks ago and by far my favorite, which I was able to ID blind, was the basic bottling. It’s got what I want in a good Syrah - bacon/meaty qualities, tart and crisp acidity, length, some spice and pepper, just good stuff. When BF is good, it’s really good. I’ve had a few in Hungary and in Austria that hit those heights. Unfortunately, too often it’s nowhere close. But you got one of the best producers out IMHO.

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Greg -

It was the basic bottling and I agree that for the $ it is an interesting and tasty wine. It really did combine the best characteristics of several regions/grapes into one bottle! I didn’t mention this in the note, but the purity of the fruit was terrific too!

I’m thinking about getting a few for the cellar. Any thoughts on how this variety ages? Based on what I experienced with this Moric, I could see it going 5+ years - easily! But, I have no idea what it will evolve into.

This was a great pick by Stephan at Crush! He listened to what I was looking for and nailed it.

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I really like these wines.

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I agree that Austrian Blaufrankisch can be quite good. Muhr-Van der Niepoort make a Carnuntum that sounds like this Moric, and I’ve had some more darkly fruited, but just as muscular, stuff from Paul Achs.

The comparisons to pinot noir, gamay, and syrah ring true to my experiences as well. It would be nice to have more opportunity to buy these around here, but I think that, with base bottlings going in the $25 range, shops think they’re not worth the hassle to sell. Unfortunate, to say the least.

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Hi Kim,

Many thanks for the note, and I am pleased you enjoyed it. Moric wine are the bee’s knees and deliver all one could ask from that grape.

I am extremely fortunate to know his importer in the UK (Lance Foyster, a lovely chap who I cannot recommend highly enough to any UK readers in search of serious kit) which has enabled even cash-strapped old me to try his ‘Ooooh fancy!’ Blaufränkisch single vineyards. I think they are worthy of high praise and much attention - I’d love to try ageing some but the keeping my hands off them would be so hard. Top bunny kit, yeah!

Cheers,
David.

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David - I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on some Moric Blaufrankisch Lutzsmnsbrg AR 06 - but am concerned about Greg T.'s remarks - any chance you’ve tried it? My understanding was the 06 was a very good vintage???

Thanks, Kim

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first off, I sell Moric in New York, on behalf of Winemonger Imports.

second, grower Roland Velich is a friend of mine. I shall send him this link and shall make corrections after he corrects me (!)

Stephen and Joe (the boys at Crush) have been in the forefront (along with the ladies at Astor) of getting these wines onto people’s menus.

Blaufränkisch from Burgenland has certainly come out of nowhere in the past seven years or so—many wines of the current quality weren’t around even at the turn of our current century.

couple facts as I understand them—there’s no new wood on the Neckenmarkter 06 Alte Reben and no small wood either. It was harvested from ancient vines, some 80+ (but try saying that in Sonoma), slate and limestone soils, yields ridiculously low—in the 20s, open fermenters/natural yeast. unfined/unfiltered. by contrast Lutzmansburg is a deep clay over volcanic subsoil, a thicker impression on the palate.

the one wine of Roland’s that’s got a bigger-than-typical oak footprint is the 07 Blauf Reserve, labelled MORIC. He added a few barrels for that vintage, among which were numbered new barrels—mostly 500s…

06 vintage offered very good material. On the other hand, by comparison, the 07 basic Blauf—also a “good” year—was one of the loveliest things that have crossed my own palate in recent years, whereas 08 was a more challenging vintage, but the wine is packed much tighter than the 07er.

tasting a few hundred Blaufränkisch, St Laurents and Zweigelts for an Austrian wine publication, I came to the conclusion that although the 07er Zweigelts were automatically delicious from nearly everybody, in 08 the Winzer bottled more impressive Blaufränker and St Laurent, simply because they were more careful with the less blessed material, and didn’t try to beat too much out of it.

in addition to Moric which I sell,
I also recommend many Blaufränkisch I do not sell, which exhibit a marvellous stylistic diversity.
highlights from Burgenland at the recent Prowein fair in Düsseldorf and just general experience are:

Uwe Schiefer—nearly every current bottling.
Kollwentz—likewise, but particularly Point 07
Paul Achs—the trio of top sites— Altenberg, Spiegel and Ungerberg—are quite varied and all extremely impressive.
Prieler—Goldberg 06 was pretty close to tops in that vintage
Franz Weninger—one of the first to bottle some of the best.

in Carnuntum, Muhr-van der Niepoort and Glatzer grow and bottle lovely Blaufränkisch—
somehow intrinsically different from the boys (and girls) in Burgenland.

shall check back in—glad you guys are on to these!

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Hi Kim,

I’ve recently tried both the 07 and 06 Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben and loved them both (with a slight preference for the 06). I found the wines to be precisely the style I would want from BF - more light and elegant rather than heavy and extracted. When the grape is handled in a, shall I say, more Pinot-like style the wines have a lot of beauty. The Lutzmannsburg Alte Rebens were seriously fine, pleasure-engorged delights (as I’d hope at the prices they go for), I think they are safe purchases.

Cheers,
David.

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Some great info in this thread. Thank you, David, Chad, and James!!! :slight_smile:

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Kim,
Thanks for posting this I love Blaufrankisch and especially Moric! I love the graphite charicter that BF can express. Last year BF moved me so much I grafted over one acre to Blaufrankisch to see if the Willamette Valley could do a world class BF.

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Wow, Dan! Will these grafted vines produce fruit you can use right away? Might be fun to follow your experiment. Wish you luck with it.

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The vines were grafted last year and so 2011 will be the first harvest. I’m pretty excited about! Can’t wait to see how they grow during the season. Last year the leaves were the largest leaves I have ever seen on a grape vine they looked like elephant ears.