Wachter Wiesler Blaufrankisch

Wachter-Wiesler sits in Südburgenland, Austria’s smallest, coolest, and most southerly red wine district, in the Eisenberg DAC. Christoph Wachter took full charge in 2010 at barely twenty, stopped all herbicides and pesticides immediately, and farms his roughly ten to fourteen hectares organically, one of only a handful in the region to do so, with biodynamic practices, native-yeast fermentation, some whole-cluster, and aging in large old barrels that shape without flavoring. What makes Eisenberg singular is its geology: rather than the limestone of Mittelburgenland, the vines grow on green schist and iron-rich clay and loam, primary rock that

gives Blaufränkisch a savory, mineral, almost bloody intensity and real finesse. Béla-Jóska is the estate’s calling card, named for the two grandfathers, Béla Wachter and Jóska Wiesler, and blended from both families’ old-vine parcels in Eisenberg and Deutsch-Schützen. It is cool, dark, and spicy with notes of sour cherry, blackberry, iron, and pepper on a tightly woven, fresh-acid frame with delicate tannins.