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Weingut Weninger

“Austrians are having problems in Hungary,” said Franz Reinhard Weniger. “People with land just over the border are losing their properties,” he explained. Although his winery is in Mittelburgenland, where the family has 25 hectares of vineyards, they also have small holdings in Südburgenland and 30 hectares across the border in Hungary, mostly near Balf, where he now lives. As the Weningers were one of the first to invest in that narrow strip of land along the southwestern shore of Lake Neusiedl, wedged between Rust and Horitschon, which belongs to Hungary, he will probably escape unscathed, but the populist government in Budapest is outlandishly xenophobic at present, making life extremely difficult for newcomers.

A pioneering member of biodynamic viticulture in Austria and a member of the organization Respekt, Weninger quickly stopped buying grapes in order to focus on estate fruit upon returning home from a stint with Kendall-Jackson in California. In 2002, he then abandoned cultured yeasts because he thought that all of his wines were tasting too similar. He is now also rolling his barrels to their side rather than topping them up in order to, as he says, “preserve the fruit.” His chief interest is the unique expression of Blaufränkisch on different soils, which few do with such a kaleidoscope of flavors.

The great vintages here are certainly 2013 with its bright elegance and 2011 with its rich, tannic depth. Weninger, though, believes that the 2012s are almost as good. “They may not have the complexity of the 2013s or the density of the 2011s, but they are more approachable today.“ Some of the 2012s may turn out better than my scores indicate: it was difficult to assess them fairly, wedged between two such vintages. Moreover, they had not been in bottle for long.

From Austria 2013 (Sep 2015) by Joel B. Payne

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2013 Blaufränkisch Horitschon

Release Price: $18

2013 Blaufränkisch Hochäcker

2013 Blaufränkisch Kirchholz

2013 Blaufränkisch Kalkofen

2012 Kékfrankos Balf

2012 Blaufränkisch Hochäcker

2012 Blaufränkisch Kirchholz

2012 Blaufränkisch Steiner

2012 Blaufränkisch Dürrau

2011 Merlot

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