2005 Blaufrankisch Reihburg

From a single site with old vines on the Eisenberg, Schiefer’s 2005 Blaufrankisch Reihburg is open-top fermented, and matured in 300- and 600-liter barrels, roughly half of which are new. The wine had not been bottled when I tasted, as it was due to undergo a regimen of two full years in barrel. One might imagine that earlier bottling would have been appropriate for the difficult 2005 vintage, but Schiefer preferred instead to make a more stringent selection, declassifying much of the Reihburg into his Eisenberg assemblage. Scents of mulberry, blackberry, pungent black tea and wood smokiness, and resin usher in a clear-fruited, creamy-textured concentration of black and blue fruits on the palate, belying what one knows of the vintage. Fine-grained tannin lends support but no roughness and the wine finishes with somber but striking low-toned, peaty smokiness and black fruit concentration. Young Uwe Schiefer is vinifying in rather Burgundian fashion Blaufrankisch from the once-famous Eisenberg on the Hungarian border (in fact he has vinified Magyar Kekfrankos as well). The result is a refined, relatively “cool”-fruited but formidably concentrated and distinctively mineral style reminiscent of Blaufrankisch from his friend Roland Velich (who suggested I make Schiefer’s acquaintance). After having the revelatory experiences related below, I had occasion in January to taste back to the inception of Schiefer’s brief winemaking career. His 2002 and 1999 Reihburg bottlings are two of the finest Austrian red wines of my experience; more to the point, Schiefer’s Blaufrankisch are simply profoundly delicious and no wine lovers should miss the chance to taste them. He would like to purchase more acreage of his own on the Eisenberg (much of what he farms is under contract) but admits ruefully to having already achieved sufficient accolades for his wine that now small local landholders are disinclined to sell for a price he can afford. The 2006s here look to be Schiefer’s best wines yet, but I shall report on them once they are in bottle. There is a single white wine at this address. Importer: Weygandt-Metzler Importing (www.weygandtmetzler.com), Unionville, PA; tel. 610-486-0800