von der Vogelwaide

Wachau
Austria
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von der Vogelwaide

Wachau
Austria
Austria
PRODUCER
Daniel Vogelwaid and Michael Donabaum
ESTABLISHED
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
REGION
Wachau
Austria
CITY / VILLAGE
CLIMATE
Continental
ELEVATION
SIZE

About

This is our second vintage to arrive from the impressive, kindly partners of Daniel Vogelwaid and Michael Donabaum, a young duo who have designs on re-interpreting some precious old parcels and vineyards in the Wachau. Indeed, after only a few vintages, they’re already successfully showing that this historical wine valley doesn’t have to be only deeply aristocratic domaines and intensely extracted, powerful, high-alcohol dry Grüners and Rieslings.

That said, Michael is in fact a son of this storied and aristocratic appellation. His family has been making wine and tending vines here for generations—Michael grew up in the family winery and attended viticulture school in Krems. (He’s also studied design and has a great eye for aesthetics, which you’ll note on the wine labels and on the Vogelwaide website.) But Michael’s hope has very much been to do something that pulls back from the more intense, fancier domaines and traditions, hoping to find a bit of new ideas and open-mindedness for his home.
That’s where his partner Daniel comes in, who’s originally from Stuttgart and worked for a remarkable number of serious wineries in France before settling with Michael in his home area of Spitz in the Wachau. (The places where Daniel learned winemaking, for reference, are: Domaine de l’Horizon in the Roussillon, Comte Lafon in Burgundy, Château Palmer in Bordeaux, and Jean-Louis Chave in the Rhône.)

Together—and initially with particular neighborly help from Michael’s grandmother—Daniel and Michael have pieced together multiple long-term leases on roughly 2.5ha of tiny old-vine parcels, many on superior soils of primary rock, loess, and gneiss. The duo are particularly interested in the steep, old-vine stuff for which the valley is famous, especially with the very mineral inflection loess gives to some of their best parcels. These are very, very difficult parcels to work, and the two of them do all of this by hand each year – there are no other employees; the work is done entirely by them from winter to harvest to ferment and cellar.

The winemaking, of course, should be mentioned; it’s obviously not northern Austrian in inflection and draws as much from more elegant natural wines as it does classical French winemaking; there are bottlings which are slightly more experimental and bottlings which are nods toward some of the greatness that white varieties can achieve in these special old vineyards, if only one steers away from sugar, power, and extract, instead toward acidity, delicacy of texture, and a balance between reduction and oxygen. Ferments are in stainless steel for the easier / introductory cuvées, but the heart of the work at the domaine is all done in neutral French barriques and demi-muids. Daniel’s especially interested in full lees aging, refinement of texture, and length on the palate, so the wines remind us a bit of other wineries we love, like Enric Soler in the Penedès or Wasenhaus in Baden.

This current release is some of the best wines we’ve yet seen from Vogelwaide: open, clear, and precise, but with beautiful body and texture. They’re a totally new story for the Wachau, and we’re excited to represent them and share them with New York.

Products

'Balztanz' Blanc

TYPE
Still / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 40% Grüner Veltliner, 35% Müller-Thurgau and 25% Riesling. Whole-cluster pressed into 60% stainless steel and 40% neutral Austrian oak (300L); no maceration (to prevent extraction of too much potassium). Before the juice is drained from the press, winemakers Daniel and Michael let it sit for a short time to oxidize the polyphenols. Spontaneous fermentation, unfined/unfiltered, full malolactic fermentation. SO2 additions are done twice if needed: one just after malolactic ferment completes, and one just before bottling; total SO2, including naturally occurring, is always kept below 50ppm. 'Balztanz' is a cuvée name that winemakers Daniel and Michael describe as "the mating dance of the bird world," and it's used for their lighter-bodied, more expressive or playful wines. The birds on the label are also non-native to the Wachau valley, indicating that these are the two cuvées for which the duo purchases a small amount fruit to augment their tiny-parcel, steep slope estate fruit. (What they purchase always comes from at least organic vineyards, from long-term relationships in their area).

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'Balztanz' Rose

TYPE
Still / Rosé
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 65% Merlot, 35% Zweigelt. Whole-cluster pressed into 300L neutral French oak barrels. Before the juice is drained from the press, winemakers Daniel and Michael let it sit for a short time to oxidize the polyphenols; spontaneous fermentation, unfined/unfiltered, full malolactic fermentation. Aged on full lees in the same barrels for 9 months; bottled in July 2021. SO2 additions are done twice if needed: one just after malo, and one just before bottling. Total SO2, including naturally occurring, is kept below 60ppm. 'Balztanz' is a cuvée name that winemakers Daniel and Michael describe as "the mating dance of the bird world," and it's used for their lighter-bodied, more expressive or playful wines. The birds on the label are also non-native to the Wachau valley, indicating that these are the two cuvées for which the duo purchases a small amount fruit to augment their tiny-parcel, steep slope estate fruit. (What they purchase always comes from at least organic vineyards, from long-term relationships in their area). One of the wildest, most piquant and expressive, but also elegant, rosés we've seen from Europe all year.

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'Frauwelt' Blanc

TYPE
Still / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 40% Riesling, 20% Grüner Veltliner, 20% Neuberger, 20% Chardonnay. Nearly all of the tiny parcels Vogelwaide works are represented in this wine, making it something of their flagship blend. Whole-cluster pressed into 80% used 228L French oak, 20% stainless steel. No maceration is done (to prevent extraction of too much potassium). Spontaneous fermentation, unfined/unfiltered, full malolactic ferment. Aged 12 months in the same vessels on full lees. Notes of mandarin orange zest, lemon thyme, and buttercream. The vines for 'Frauwelt' are on the best parcels of steep-slope vineyards with which the Vogelwaide boys work, around the cool sites in Spitz and the warmer villages of Arnsdorf, both with loess-driven soils. The cuvée name is inspired by a poem of Walther von der Vogelwaide, a medieval poet from the region: "Frau Welt, ich hab von dir getrunken!" The term 'frauwelt' represented temptation and allure in the Middle Ages; the cuvée name indicates the duo's Rhône-inspired cuvées.

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Riesling 'Tandaradai'

TYPE
Still / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 100% Riesling. This wine is one of the top two bottlings at Vogelwaide, selected from their very best and oldest vineyard parcels; here the very steep, stone-terraced vineyard sites are called Biern and Trauntal. Whole-cluster pressed into 100% neutral French 350L barrels. No maceration is done to prevent extraction of too much potassium. Spontaneous fermentation, unfined/unfiltered. Aged in the same barrels for 12 months on full lees. This vintage is super high-toned, with savory herbs and a pronounced smoky minerality. The word 'Tandaradai' is a medieval Austro-German word: onomatopoeia for the sound of the flapping of a bird’s wings.

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Gruner Veltliner 'Tandaradai'

TYPE
Still / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 100% Grüner Veltliner. One of the two top wines at the Vogelwaide domaine, this comes from two single-vineyard parcels of intense steepness and difficulty to work, called Vogelleithen and Johannserberg. Both vineyards have very old vines on poor soils and old terraces. Whole-cluster pressed into 100% neutral French 228L. No maceration is done (to prevent extraction of too much potassium). Spontaneous fermentation, unfined/unfiltered, full malolactic. Aged in the same neutral French 228L for 12 months on full lees. This wine is deeply golden, with clear tones of yellow apple and apricot .The word 'Tandaradai' is a medieval Austro-German word: onomatopoeia for the sound of the flapping of a bird’s wings. Only around 500 bottles of this wine are produced each year.

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'Kane Grade' Red

TYPE
Still / Red
VARIETAL
Syrah, Zweigelt
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 70% Merlot, 30% Zweigelt. This bottling is a mix of estate fruit and purchased fruit from vignerons Daniel and Michael's organic grower-partner in the Wachau. Sand and clay soils for these parcels; carbonic maceration on the base wine followed by aging in small neutral barrels for four months. Unfined, unfiltered, 20mg/l SO2 added. Only 500 btls produced!

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'Kane Grade' Ancestrale

TYPE
Sparkling / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 100% Blauburger. This is purchased fruit from vignerons Daniel and Michael's organic grower-partner in the Wachau. This wine isn't technically ancestrale, but rather made in the Italian 'rifermentato' method--fresh juice is added in the spring to trigger a gentle secondary fermentation. Whole cluster pressed into one neutral 500L barrel for the base wine. Disgorged after six months on lees, unfined/unfiltered. 10mg/l SO2. 300 btls produced only!

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'Kane Grade' White

TYPE
Still / White
VARIETAL
FARMING PRACTICE
Biodynamic, Organic
DETAILS

Organic. 55% Grüner Veltliner, 30% Welschriesling, 15% Müller-Thurgau. This bottling is a mix of estate fruit and purchased fruit from vignerons Daniel and Michael's organic grower-partner in the Wachau. Sand and clay soils for these parcels. The wine is fermented on the skins, with roughly 20% of the juice done with carbonic maceration; the rest is fermented ‘normally,’ all in stainless steel. Then 40% of the wine was moved into 300L neutral barrels; both parts of wine spent roughly 5 – 6 months on full lees before bottling. Unfined, unfiltered, 20mg/l SO2 added. Only 600 btls made.

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