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Grabenwerkstatt

Franz Hofbauer and Michael Linke founded the Grabenwerkstatt together in 2014. Within a short decade, they already have made a big name for themselves by championing wines from the Spitzer Graben, a lateral valley of the Danube along the Spitzer Bach, in the far west of the Wachau. Hofbauer trained as a chef, then worked in wine retail and sales before taking over event management for Domäne Wachau. Linke, who hails from the Pfalz in Germany, studied international wine business in Geisenheim, but neither is from a winemaking family. The pair met while both worked at Domäne Wachau. Hofbauer had worked a vintage at Felton Road in New Zealand in 2010, and Linke had been on a school exchange in Australia, so they planned a road trip to Australia and New Zealand, where they almost spent a year, with further work stints at Felton Road and Akarua, both in Central Otago. However, working with (the late) Mike and Claudia Weersing at Pyramid Valley proved instrumental. It confirmed to Hofbauer and Linke that you did not have to be born into a winemaking family or have vast amounts of capital to start making wine. They then decided they wanted to make “traditional Wachau wine like it was made in the 1960s, without botrytis, totally straight,” Hofbauer said. “We could have made wine everywhere, but the Graben interested us, as this was the peasant appendix of the Wachau, with genial sites on steep terraces and poor soils,” he adds. It was always clear that they wanted to farm organically, and they “found a few vineyards that nobody wanted because they could not be accessed by tractor.” This did not matter to them since they did not own a tractor. “This was the best region, and we wanted to play at the top,” Linke added. “This would not have been possible in the Pfalz,” he noted, where there is no longer a way of getting your hands on any top sites. They also mentioned their timing was ideal, as other estates that could have taken over some parcels in these locations already had sufficient sites and also wanted to see the Spitzer Graben elevated. Taking over these sites meant painstaking and backbreaking restoration work of old terraces. The first two vintages were made in the nearby potato cellar of Hofbauer’s grandmother since they wanted to work free from any winemaking influence and, thus, not rent any cellar space. Vintages from 2017 to 2019 were made in Hofbauer’s father’s garage, and in 2020, they built their new winery in Trandorf, at the furthest end of the Wachau, bordering the Waldviertel. Today, they farm 4.5 hectares, all on terraced vineyards, but still have 1.3 hectares of vineyards in the Kalkofen that await repairing of terraces and replanting, Schön and Brandstatt sites. Plantings are 60% Grüner Veltliner, 40% Riesling and a “tiny” amount of Neuburger. Until 2020, both kept their day jobs in order to afford their new winery project. They still do not own a tractor. Fruit is harvested in 20kg boxes, whole-bunch-pressed, sedimented overnight and fermented spontaneously in stainless steel, now without temperature control. The wines stay on gross lees for as long as possible. Their wine style is ripe but early harvested, resulting in luminously brilliant and sometimes hair-raising wines that will appeal to advanced drinkers and those who want a thrill.

From 2023 Wachau and Lower Austria: Mercurial Weather Gods Smiled in the End (Jul 2024) by Anne Krebiehl MW

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2023 Grüner Veltliner Wachauwerk

Color: White

2023 Grüner Veltliner Wachauwerk

2023 Grüner Veltliner Grabenwerk

2023 Grüner Veltliner Ried Schön

2023 Grüner Veltliner Ried Brandstatt

2023 Riesling Ried Bruck

2023 Riesling Ried Kalkofen

2023 Rieslign Ried Trenning

2022 Riesling Grosses Werk

2023 Pfalzwerk

2023 Rohwerk

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