#502 Three Austrian Wines

Josef Lieberl first made wine in Burgenland in Austria in 1969 and only a year later took over the entire winemaking process from his father.  Known as 'Sepp', he decided to change the way his family company made wine.  He stopped chaptalising the wines, preferring to produce lower alcohol wines and found that these were very popular.  He also took the wine out of two litre bottles, as was the norm in the early seventies, and put the wines into 750ml bottles.  When he took over the whole company in the early 1980's, he travelled extensively learning how wine was made in regions such as the Mosel, California, Alto Adige and countries including Australia and New Zealand.  This had an effect on the wines he made, and similarly, his son Gerald - who has been making the wines since 1997 - did his apprenticeships in Australia and America.

Starting with the single varietal 2008 Josef Leberl Zweigelt Alte Rebe, with grapes from forty year old vines, I really enjoyed the smoky fruit with a lot of tobacco and menthol coming off.  Violet then emerged with a bundle of raspberry and cherry.  The palate has more of that smokiness, a bit of cherry, lovely savoury notes and a  bit of tannin and almond.  Liquorice on the palate but very well balanced.  A bit of earth on the finish with some manure aromas.  Not bad and a good example of this Austrian grape.  80pts

Taking Cabernet Sauvignon and mixing it with Blaufrankisch and Zweigelt isn't normally what a winemaker might do, but that is exactly what the 2007 Josef Leberl Peccatum is.  Sweet menthol and chocolate on the nose, a bit of raw beef too and then a lot of Mr Sheen furniture polish.  Vegetal green pepper coming off as well.  The palate is quite chunky, a bit of sweet coffee and chocolate coming through.  Nice veggie elements and more floral note coming off.  Nice balance, fresh and a bit chunkier.  82pts

 

Finally I tried a sweet wine, the 2009 Josef Leberl Beerenauslese Samling.  It had delicious rich, sweetened grapefruit with a lot of honey coming out of the glass with a bit of citrus pith coming through as well.  A lovely turkish delight element coming through followed by peachy elements, more rounded fruit with a tangerine flavour.  It is very nice and gentle, cleans up with a lovely floral sweetness, but lacks the zing you need to combat the sweetness which spoils this wine.  I can't help thinking it needs a bit of Riesling to cut the rounder, sweeter flavours.  78pts

I liked the wines from this producer, you can see the traditional Austrian style but also the new world influences in their reds.  Careful winemaking has made them good, solid wines and, although they produce sixteen wines, I'm glad that they focus on red as it is what they appear do well.