Hannes Schuster has taken up the reins of his family’s estate, crafting wines of purity that celebrate his region's history and traditions.
Weingut Rosi Schuster was initially established in 1979, by young Rosi and her partner Franz with just 3 hectares of vines around their home village of Sankt Margarethen, in Burgenland, Austria. While the, now, 14 ha estate still bear’s Rosi’s name, it is her son Hannes who has been at the reins since 2007. While continuing to respect the history and tradition of the Leithaberg region there have been some notable evolutions. Hannes has taken his family’s winery to the next level with the conversion to organic farming, which began in 2009. This change is a reflection of Hannes himself, a nurturing presence in the vineyards and minimalist in the cellar. Hannes considers wines to be made in the vineyard and they rely on healthy soils, deeply rooted vines. From his first vintage Hannes has embraced gentle and natural winemaking. After being hand harvested, fermentations are spontaneous. Wines experience long lees aging and are bottled with minimal amounts of sulphur.
“I have a big problem with the wine law in Austria. Because you can more or less do anything to the wine — add sugar, or acidity; filter and fine, etc. Wines made this way are always allowed to name their origin on the label — except that these wines have had the place stripped out of them.”
Unsurprisingly, local grapes are the focus here with the reds, Sankt Laurent and Blaufränkisch, making up 75% of the vineyard holdings. The rest is a mix that includes some of our favourites: Rotberger, Grüner Veltliner, Furmint, Pinot Blanc and Welschriesling.
Fermentation vessels for the grapes, particularly those used in blends, vary from different sized oak barrels (all neutral) and stainless steel depending on the vintage. Other wine making decisions, such as stem inclusion also vary by year, while Hannes notably does not intend to ever use 100% stem inclusion. Some years more gentle extraction is called for and grapes will be foot-tread. Always, the emphasis is about hands-on winemaking where the taste, smell, and feel of the grapes dictate Hannes’s decisions.
Tasting these wines truly takes you on tour of the region. Wines relay their origins in heavy loam, sandstone, gravel and limestone from the 40 small parcels within six villages - Sankt Margarethen, Zagersdorf, Oslip, Schutzen Am Gebirge, Donnerskirchen and Mullendorf – where Schuster is farming. Uniquely, Hannes offers few single vineyard bottlings, instead choosing to emphasize blends highlighting the terroir of each village. These blends are exceptional from the entry level Aus dem Dorfen (From the Village), to his Dorfkutur (Village Culture) wines, all the way to the top village-named blends. These are a celebration of Austro-Hungarian history and offer terroir in the truest sense.
Look out for our first offer in Spring of 2024!