Edgar Brutler
About
Edgar is a talented vigneron who, after studying oenology at Gesenheim, founded a small, five-hectare domaine in 2018 by re-organizing some old family vineyards in his home country of Romania, region of Transylvania. Those are the basic facts, but what you should also know is about Edgar’s terrific instincts, both in terms of his awareness of vineyards and also in particular in the cellar. Everything we’ve tasted from him has had a striking, clear imprint. There’s clarity, nervy acidity, and something of a shimmer: a line of minerals, with feather-like delicacy in the texture of each bottling. Edgar is also a serious musician (he’s been playing the violin, the guitar, and the drums since he was, oh, six years old), and you do feel the resonance of someone with an artistic ability in the wines.
We know some of the quality of Edgar’s wines hails not just from his hand, but also because he’s personally selected the parcels with which he works, drawn from older family holdings obtained in the 1990s once the post-Soviet moment in Romania finally began. Many years of the Brutler family being in this little region called Crișana has enabled Edgar to hone in on specific vineyards and varieties that he thinks have the greatest potential in Transylvania. Acidity, lift, and sharpness are the key features of the varieties of this place on which he focuses. The farming at Brutler’s winery has been organic for nearly 20 years, even before his project’s founding; ferments are all native; no filtration is employed, SO2 additions are minimal and usually after ferment is complete.
It's also worth noting that Edgar’s parents are still very much involved on the four hectares of family vineyards; they help him with the day-to-day viticulture so that he’s able to live and work at other wineries, particularly in Burgenland, where he’s done a lot of winemaking work over the last 15 years. Edgar’s description of the processes at the domaine might sound simple, but it’s the kind of thing we love to hear: “We farm organic. Not more and not less. We use our own produced compost. There is a cattle farmer in the village. He delivers, we let it sit on the field until it is ripe. We spray copper and sulfur. We let the natural grass grow between the vines, but we open up under the vines [occasionally] with a plough. This is good for grape health; it keeps the soil in little crumbles, which is good for the young roots that are built every year newly. All other work is made by hand. [We use a] sensitive pruning technique, shoot selection, and leaf management, depending on weather conditions. All in all I gotta say that much of this work is in very good hands with my parents. They have a very good feeling for it.”
Lovers of old-school, filigreed German white wines or Czech cold-climate freshness should really take note of Edgar’s work. We’re reminded, in terms of climate where the Brutler domaine is located, by the deep green valleys and western low hills with forest and old farms, of viticultural places like Franken in Germany or Moravia in the southern Czech Republic. Stefan Vetter in Franken, Marto in the Rheinhessen, and Vína Herzánovi in Moravia are all producers whose clear, nimble, acid-driven wines remind us of Brutler’s work, but there’s still something genuinely unique in these bottles. The top wines that Edgar currently produces, called ‘Grünspitz,’ ‘Saito,’ and ‘Spitz,’ are all representations of native varieties across top parcels, calling to mind the finest qualities of Riesling, Sylvaner, and even really high-pitched Chardonnay.
We’re thrilled to be representing Edgar’s fine work in New York and New Jersey, helping expand the understanding of what grapes and which regions an excellent vigneron can render into beautiful, personal work—with Transylvania’s unbroken 2,000 year history of viticulture, it shouldn’t seem so exceptional, but then again, Brutler himself has something of an exceptional, charismatic intelligence that we think clearly translates into these delicious bottles.
Products
'Vinul Casei Alb' White
Organic. Largely a field blend from a single parcel planted in 1926, of local varieties Grünspitz, Fetească Regală, and Welschriesling, plus other natives. There’s a small amount of fruit blended in from a village neighbor’s organic vineyard, as well, containing Riesling, Chardonnay, and Furmint. The wine was 80% steel tank-fermented, with 20% in 600L oak barrels, then blended after winter. Unfined/unfiltered, 10ppm SO2 added just before bottling. ‘Vinul Casei Alb’ means ‘white house wine,’ but this bottling shouldn’t be mistaken as something simple. As Edgar puts it, “While drinking [this] I want you to imagine you are standing in a small private cellar while the winemaker tells you about his worries and joys. A moment when you can forget everything else – these are some of the favorite hours of my life. The label might seem very basic. Basic like the wines you could find and drink in Beltiug. But the emotional complexity of these wines is deeper and more extensive than you can imagine.”
'Drum Bun' White
Organic. 100% Fetească Regală. The fruit for this cuvée is sourced from four different vineyard sites, all planted in the 1970’s. Edgar mentions that each parcel contains different clones of this special local variety and that each vineyard tastes quite different. 50% of the wine spends two days on the skins, 20% is direct-pressed into barrels, 30% fermented in tank with zero maceration. Unfiltered, unfined, 10ppm SO2 added just before bottling. ‘Drum Bun’ translates to ‘bon voyage’ and can be seen on every sign as you travel from village to village around Romania.
Grunspitz
Organic. 100% Grünspitz. The Brutler family’s 15 year-old .8 hectare vineyard is one of only two known vineyards of Grünspitz in the world. It was traditionally grown in the field blends of the area, but it was grandfather Schmied who decided to keep a small vineyard alive. Johann Brutler, Edgar’s father, took cuttings from his own father and re-planted them in Beltiug. Grünspitz in general as a variety is super late-ripening, small-berried, thick-skinned, with very high acidity. It needs a long pressing at high pressure to manage the tannins, as well as extra time in bottle to settle and and resolve. The 2022 was whole cluster-pressed, fermented and aged 90% in oak barrels and 10% in amphora. Unfined, unfiltered, zero SO2 added. This is the white wine that made us look long and hard to try to find and meet Edgar a few years ago!
'Wieso? Nicht!' Red
Organic. A field blend from a tiny vineyard of .4ha, composed of Blaufränkisch, Portugieser, Welschriesling, Fetească Regală, and a handful of unknown local varieties. 40+ year-old vines, only about 30% of the vineyard is red varieties. All varieties are macerated for two days, pressed, and co-fermented, then aged in 500L oak barrels for around nine months to a year. Unfined, unfiltered, a small amount of SO2 added just before bottling. This is a light red with a touch of fine grip, great acidity, and pretty aromatics – heady and very easy to drink, but not a thin or structureless wine. Edgar calls it “a white wine with a touch of red color.”
'Saito' White
Organic. A white wine made dominantly of the varieties Fetească Regală and Olaszrizling, with ‘at least 13 others, some unidentified,’ from two different old field blend parcels. The vineyards are fermented separately and then blended together. Both vineyards are hand-picked and spend two days on the skins, but one with stems and the other without. Fermented and aged in both amphora, concrete egg, and neutral oak barrels—the élevage changes a bit each year but is usually a combination of these. Unfined/unfiltered, with 10ppm SO2 added just before bottling. The name of the wine is a nod to a ‘Sajtóház,’ or press house in the vineyard, where his grandparents would both make wine and occasionally sleep. As Edgar puts it, ‘this wine is pure juice.’ We think it’s long, complex, and sort of extraordinary, in addition to having great “juiciness.”
'Spitz' Skin Contact White
Organic. 100% Grünspitz. Drawn from the particularly intense middle and upper sections of the Brutler family’s steepest vineyard where rain has washed away the surface topsoils of loam, leaving mostly gravel behind. Ripeness is a moving target in this special swath of vineyard; it normally takes up to six separate harvests passes due to the steepness of the grade. The lower part of this vineyard is often up to four weeks later than this piece that goes into ‘Spitz.’ Fermented in a combination of 600L barrel and 300L amphora. Unfined, unfiltered, with 10ppm SO2 added just before bottling. Majestic wine and barely showing “skin contact” as we might understand it; wildly different from some burly and structured types of macerated wines; this is Edgar’s riper version of the very wiry & bright grape variety.
