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Wine Description
The Story
The ‘Tradition’ wines are related to the early 19th century – especially to the period between around 1800 and 1850. This period is marked on one side by the period of baroque, where intense aromatisation in vinfication was practice. With the upcoming Romantic aromatisation yielded the idea of pure nature and the ‘pure’ taste. Besides that winemakers were looking back to an empirical knowledge of nearly 2000 years of winemaking. On the other hand this period is marked in the middle of the century by the upcoming industrialisation which has been leading to more and more technology in the cellar and started to change the craftsmanship side of winemaking. This development leads step by step to the point, when we start to talk about modern winemaking, which focuses on the question of aromas and fruit components.
200 years ago the cellar masters of Gobelsburg had a completely different idea on wine. Wine was seen in these days much more as an individual. They compared wine with the human being and believed that as we humans have to undergo certain development, also a wine has to do so. And as we have to breathe, also a wine has to breathe in order to accomplish all that. These considerations have been leading to the common practice to rack the wine from cask to cask to let the wine breath in order to encourage the next step of his development. This was repeated several times and was called the ‘teaching’ of the wine (ger: die Schulung). Here the relation between wine and cellar master can be seen in the same way as the relation between a teacher and his pupil. The task of the cellar master was to identify the potential of the wine and according to that, ‘teach’ him up to his potential. This can be seen in contradiction to our today’s modern imagination that great wine is made in the vineyard and not in the cellar. In our todays mind we belief that the big art of making a great wine is to do ‘nothing’.
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.
Wine Information
Cellar and Vinification – gearing for the ultimate reduction
The oldest part of the cellar dates back to the castle facilities of the 11th century. Over the centuries, the cellar was continuously expanded.
When Moosbrugger and Bründlmayer took over the winery in 1996, they had a wine cellar that met modern technological requirements.
In times when many large international cellars are attempting to produce uniform wines which cater to the widest range of tastes possible, 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 warrant uniformity, Moosbrugger believes that a maximum of individuality can only be achieved through reduction.
This is why plans do not revolve around the question of what machines the cellar can still add to its pool, but which machines can be done without. Moosbrugger therefore developed the 'Dynamic Cellar Concept' for Gobelsburg. The key point here is to have flexible cellar operation where – to put it simplistically – wines are no longer pumped from one location to the other, but transported in 'barrels on wheels' from one section of the cellar to the other.
The containers used to mature wines also help shape the character of these wines. Timber from Manhartsberg (a region north of Langenlois) is used for the large and small oak casks. Of course, this wood has a different character 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 important findings derived from the study of old wine-making techniques, which also resulted in a wine series by the name of 'Tradition'. These wines are made using the traditional method of the 19th century and do not only have old and sound ageing structures, but also pave the way to (almost) forgotten Austrian culture of taste.
