Schloss Maissau- Ried Quittengang Reserve 2018

Vintage: 2018
Varietal: Grüner-Veltliner
Appellation: Weinviertel DAC Reserve
Vineyard Designation: Ried Quittengang
Sulphur (SO2): free 21mg/L- total 85mg/L
Sugar: Dry
Acid: 4.6 g/L
pH: 3.45
Production Size: 900 bottles
Altitude: 340m (1115 feet)
Vineyard Age: 37 years
Residual Sugar: 1.1 g/L
Tannin: None
Alcohol %: 13

Grapes are farmed organically (ECOCERT) and have been certified since 2016. These grapes were allowed to hang on the vine all the way until October 3rd. This gives the wine a very distinctive style- similar to the Smaragd wines of the Wachau. Grapes are hand-picked.

Soil Type(s): Granite

The selected grapes come into the cellar and are cold soaked for 12 hours before going into the press, destemmed. The cold soak is to extract more typical peppery and ripe aromas from the skins. No sulphur or any other additions are made to the grapes or must, and everything is gravity fed. After about 10 hours, the must needs to be racked into the fermenting tank. The fermentation starts with natural yeast and after about 2 weeks in the middle of the slow, cold fermentation additional inoculation bring the wine to full dryness. The fermentation is temperature controlled at 21°C (70°F). The wine sits on gross lees for about 1 year without sulphur and then another 6 months on fine lees after being sulphured for the first time. This wine is clear due to the long time in tank without disturbance but bottled unfiltered.

The Schloss Maissau is a small passion project of the Gruber family. They had the opportunity to manage, farm and make wine from the very old vineyards next to the historic 13th century Schloss Maissau castle. In fact, they have documents from year 1114 that reference these vineyards. In 2006, the current caretaker of the castle approached Ewald's dad to revitalize the production of the wines from the castle's grounds. It took seven years to get the chemicals out of the ground, 3 more to apply for organic status. They are certified organic with the 2016 vintage onwards. In total they have 5 hectares and make 4000 cases of Grüner Veltliner wine.

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