Schiefer Blaufränkisch Eisenberg

Romazini: 3/5 Stars

The Winespectator: 87/100 Points

This has a spicy, beefy aroma and crisp, firm flavors of wild plum and raspberry, with medium-grained tannins on the minerally finish. Drink now through 2013.

Robert Parker: 92/100 Points

Vintage 2006: The Schiefer 2006 Blaufrankisch Eisenberg - representing, at around a thousand cases, the bulk of his production - arises from 15 different parcels in the steep, schist and chalk soils of the Eisenberg sector, picked in late October. Scents of fresh red raspberry and black cherry are wreathed in distilled herbs and flowers, wood smoke and site-typical peaty pungency. Leathery, animal notes impinge on a palate of impressively deep fruit, along with salt, crushed stone, and pepper. Subtle suggestions of creaminess only set the brightness of fruit in more striking relief, and this finishes with a long, dynamic sense of fruit, animal, and mineral interplay. A sensational value, it should be worth following from bottle for 5-7 years.

I wrote extensively in issue 177 about Uwe Schiefer and his remarkable and distinctive Blaufrankisch from the once-famous Eisenberg area on the Hungarian border in South Burgenland. His 2006 collection almost certainly represents the best of his eight to date, hence some of the most exciting red wine ever produced in Austria. Despite his relatively brief history, Schiefer's conception of Blaufrankisch as a wine with site-sensitivity and finesse comparable, and best handled in a manner akin to that of Burgundian Pinot Noir and not a wine of, as he puts it, "tannin and power," or one best marked by small toasty barrels, has begun to resonate within Austria, not least in the exciting Moric wines of Roland Velich (the 2006s of which are reviewed in this report).

The Winemaker