Schloss Gobelsburg Tradition Heritage Cuvée 10 Years Edition 852 NV

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

The ‘Tradition’ wines are an ode to the winemaking style being employed at Gobelsburg in the early 19th century – specifically the years between 1800 and 1850. This period is characterized by the era of baroque, where intense aromatics in vinfication was being practiced.

The grapes are pressed with a basket press for low sediment content, without further sedimentation the wines are fermented without temperature control in 25 hl Manhartsberg oak casks (double foudre). After the fermentation the wines are racked every 3 to 4 months to let the wine ‘breathe’ on one side, but on the other side to go off the lees. This process lasts for about two years until the wine is ready to be bottled.

I’m a big fan of such techniques. The extreme version would be akin to the production of fortified Muscat and Muscadelle in Rutherglen.

For a table wine, you have the opportunity to take components from multiple vintages and multiple varieties to make wines that have incredible complexity, harmony, balance and mouthfeel. The quality of fruit required to apply such a process sees wines starting at a very high base level.

Exposure to oxygen, the slowing of barrel maturation by using larger format foudre, the cool cellars of Austria are all in favour of a gentle, patient upbringing for the wine. Blending older elements in adds complexity, mid-palate weight, and can help achieve a natural balance adding yet another benefit.

Moosbruger’s efforts have made for complete, seamless, entrancing wines.

The 10 year Tradition

Looking into the inventories of the monastic estate from past centuries, the monks released special wines that were matured much longer than the regular line of wines. The 10 year TRADITION Heritage is an homage to this style and expression of the great Danube wines.

Today’s vinification follows the typical techniques of this area and thoughts at that time. After being harvested grapes are crushed, macerated for 10 – 18 hours, pressed with a basket press and fermented in a wooden cask without sedimentation. By racking the wine from cask to cask during the three year maturation for elevation and gaining aroma it is also, separated from the lees and clarified without filtration.

Older vintages are added by the cellermaster for harmony. The Edition number corresponds with the estate’s years of operation.

The 50 year Tradion Edition 850

I leave this section here as it gives some insight into how far these methods can be pushed.

There are characters we look for in the best wines length, depth, balance, complexity, freshness, development, mouthfeel, delicacy, and overall beauty, personality if you prefer.

Austrian vineyards have been planted on the very limits of climate able to sustain a vineyard. The varieties planted chosen for their ability to survive and ripen in such a marginal climate.

When young they can have fierce acidity that takes years if not decades to fall into balance. It’s here we see the first win for this wine. During this time the acid forms tartrate crystals, natural sedimentation sees them slowly fall to the side of the bottle along with any other small particles in the wine. The wine now brilliant and transparent. Development in bottle is slowed by the high acidity, as it progresses the wine harmonizes, it builds generosity of flavour. Reserve wines for Champagnes are held for this reason to add richness to new blends. This development adds nectar, honey, maple, toasty and nutty aromas and flavours. The texture softens, as the youthful firm acid settles, and phenolic components oxidise and settle out too. All the components integrate, yielding a seamless delicate thing of beauty.

The longevity of fortified wines through the addition of alcohol and their high sugar content allows components 10, 20, 50 even 100 years old to be used in blends.

Here the acidty, and perfect, cold storage conditions in the cellars at Schloss Goldesburg have offered the same opportunity for a white wine.

When I made the 1996 wines at Yarra Yering, the vintage was extreme, cold and wet. The wines that have naturally high acidity in a normal year had extreme acid levels. We really should have deacidified them. It took near 20 years for them to resolve. The mask of acid was lifted revealing a delicacy, a beauty. They were not YY’s best wines, yet they were much more impressive than I had ever expected they would be.

Often when we buy great wines we have little idea what will happen to them in time. Has the winemaker made them for longevity? Will they be stored well? Will the cork fail? Do they really have the quality to last? All of these factors, bar cork taint have been taken out of the mix. This wine has been beautifully blended, the development is clear yet it is wonderfully vital and fresh with loads of energy. The acid profile and mouthfeel are divine. The length, layering, and complexity offered by so many components is extreme. If there was ever an argument for blending across vintages, varieties and beyond this is it! When blending a young wine, we still need to call it as we see it, project a little into the future, without predicting too much.

The Heritage 50 years allows the maker to predict the future. They can take the best wines from each year, the varieties that have excelled and aged perfectly. As an alchemist would, blend precisely, bringing together the earthy, dirty, savoury components with the perfumed, fruity, sweet elements. With a final flourish add a tiny hit of sulphur to freshen the wine bringing it all together.

Moosbrugger has achieved all of the above with a deft hand! The wine is stunning!

As to economic viability, well that went out the door 50 years ago sometime in around October 1970. For the same price as a current release Premier Cru white Burgundy you get to devour a wine 850 years in the making!

For the 850th Jubilee and for more than twenty years now the team of Schloss Gobelsburg has researched & engaged itself with historical techniques of vinification. Out of these efforts, the TRADITION series was born. Beginning this year, the TRADITION wines will henceforth be issued in editions. In order to launch this with Edition 850, the winery is introducing its jubilee wine Tradition Heritage 50 Jahre (50 Years). Working with the cellar team, an extraordinary wine has been created: a cuvée blended from wines of five decades, in which rarities reaching back into the 1970s have been included. And in tune with the relevant numbers, 1171 cases of 6x750ml plus 850 magnums of this remarkable wine have been bottled.

Vintage 1970 – 1979 – 11%   (1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1979)
Vintage 1980 – 1989 – 12%   (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989)
Vintage 1990 – 1999 – 7%   (1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999)
Vintage 2000 – 2009 -37%   (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009)
Vintage 2010 – 2017 -33%   (2011, 2013, 2014, 2017)

Grape varieties: Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, Grüner Sylvaner, Muskat Sylvaner, Riesling Sylvaner, Welschriesling, Muskat Ottonel, Traminer, Muskateller.

About Schloss Gobelsburg

More than three-quarters of a millennium ago – in the year 1171, to be exact – the cloistral chronology of Weingut Schloss Gobelsburg began. That was the year when the Cistercian monks of Stift Zwettl acquired their first vineyards around Riede Heiligenstein. An impressive monastic property would develop over the centuries out of these parcels, managed by the monks of the abbey until twenty-five years ago (1996), when they placed responsibility for this monument to Austria’s viticultural heritage in the hands of Michael Moosbrugger and his family.

Schloss Gobelsburg is arguably one of the great Estates in the World of wine today ,producing exceptional wines from the finest Vineyads in the Kamptal. Heiligenstein , Gaisberg and Lamm are only some of the names which have repeatedly been named as the pinnacle of Viticulture.

Exploring Austrian Wine

Michael Moosbrugger, CEO and winemaker at Schloss Gobelsburg, talking about the history of winemaking in Austria, the appellation system, vineyard classification and celebrating their 850th vintage in 2021.

5:25 – Michael begins his presentation
6:15 – History of Austrian wine
8:40 – New wine culture in Austria
9:55 – Regions and appellations
17:45 – Vineyard classification system
19:23 – Schloss Gobelsburg Estate
23:15 – Wine production at Schloss Gobelsburg
29:55 Vintage 2020
33:15 – Tradition 50 years wines to mark 850th vintage

In the Vineyard

Schloss Gobelsburg has several historical vineyard sites around the castle. Every site has its specialties and particularities with different soil and micro-climatic conditions. From the sun-exposed terraces on Zöbinger Heiligenstein and the Gaisberg mountain to the extensive garden facilities around Gobelsburg castle, the vines are subjected to a wide range of conditions. In accordance with their respective potential, the best possible development conditions are established for every grape variety.

At Schloss Gobelsburg, ecological winegrowing is not just simply en vogue at the moment. The monks of the Zwettl Monastery, who managed the winery until 1995, used organic fertiliser, abstained from employing herbicides, and aimed to reduce the use of plant protectants.

In 1996, the Schloss Gobelsburg Winery was granted membership into the renowned Verein der Österreichischen Traditionsweingüter (Association of Austrian Traditional Wineries). This association was the first in Austria to classify vineyard locations in Kamptal and Kremstal. Many of these vineyards – usually locations with a long history – produce wines with great potential year after year and stand out from the other conventional vineyards.

In the Winery

Simplicity & strictness are the two motifs of monastic life still working their magic in the cellars. The idea of the barrel on wheels is an important element of a dynamic wine production. Central to this concept are working processes requiring a minimum of mechanical impact on the wine. The utilisation of natural resources in combination with innovative elements help to form the character of the wines by preserving their authenticity.

The oldest part of the cellar dates back to the castle facilities of the 11th century and over the years, the cellar has been continuously expanded. When Moosbrugger and Bründlmayer took over the winery in 1996, the cellar was already well equipped with modern technologies.

In times when many large international cellars are attempting to produce uniform wines that cater to standardised tastes, Moosbrugger is convinced that the future of wineries like Schloss Gobelsburg lies in individuality and character. As a high level of technology is necessary to obtain uniformity, Moosbrugger believes that a great level of individuality can only be achieved through reduction of intervention.

This is why at Gobelsburg plans do not revolve around the question of which  machines can still be added to the cellar, but instead which machines can be done without. Moosbrugger developed the ‘Dynamic Cellar Concept’ for the winery with the key idea being to have flexible cellar operation where – to put it simplistically – wines are no longer pumped from one location to the other, but instead transported in ‘barrels on wheels’ from one section of the cellar to the other.

The type of barrels used to mature wines helps to shape their character which is why for centuries Timber from Manhartsberg (a region north of Langenlois) has been used for the large and small oak casks. Naturally, this wood has a different character profile than oak from Allier or America. But it’s the regional character that forms the authentic personality of the Schloss Gobelsburg wines, which comes from a symbiosis between the trees that are grown under same climatically conditions then the grapes of the later wines.

This approach is also based on significant findings derived from the study of old wine-making techniques, which resulted in a wine series by the name of ‘Tradition’. These wines are made using the traditional method of the 19th century which is known for its old and sound aging structures, that has also paved the way to the (almost) forgotten Austrian culture of taste.

Where in the World is Schloss Gobelsburg?

Schloss Gobelsburg is in Niederosterreich (Lower Austria) in the Kamptal region.