Sauvignon Blanc Kitzeck-Sausal from Wohlmuth Winery

The Wohlmuth Sauvignon Blanc Kitzeck-Sausal 2023 is a wonderfully dry white wine from Styria in Austria. The Sauvignon Blanc from Wohlmuth Winery is a spicy-smoky, complex wine with multi-layered aromatics and a strong terroir character. On the palate, its aromatic spectrum reveals ripe yellow tropical fruits such as passion fruit and physalis, as well as candied orange zest, with some vegetal notes, sweet red pepper, and always a subtle slate spice, a wonderfully cool minerality, finesse, and precision. This demonstrates the brilliant interplay of grape variety, soil, location, and winemaker's craft, which has a 200-year-old tradition at Wohlmuth.

Wohlmuth – Wine Production

The Sauvignon Blanc vines grow on absolutely steep vineyard slopes on phyllitic slate soils, reddish and black in color. This slate is thin-layered, sometimes a bit more compact with inclusions of quartz, sericite, and potassium feldspar. Influenced by the Illyrian climate, which brings warm winds from the Mediterranean and cool winds from the northern Alps to Kitzeck in Southern Styria, and with much manual labor on the steep slopes, which requires admirable local attachment, this dry white wine with its unmistakable, complex fruit expression is created.

All grapes are selectively hand-picked very late. Since the vineyards are located around the winery, there are no long transport routes. After an 8-16 hour maceration period, gentle and slow pressing takes place. Spontaneous fermentation occurs in large, used wooden barrels, as does the 7-month aging on fine lees.

Even though the Sauvignon Blanc grape variety does not yet have such a long tradition in Styria, it has found a place there where it finds optimal conditions and produces wines of international stature. The grape variety originated from a cross between Traminer and Chenin Blanc and originally comes from the Loire. It has small, densely packed berries. Its strong growth requires good canopy management, as its aromatic compounds, methoxypyrazines and mercaptans, are light-sensitive. Its characteristic bouquet ranges from grassy, green fruit and notes of bell pepper in not fully ripe grapes to an expressive aromatic diversity of elderflower, gooseberries, cassis, and tropical fruits such as passion fruit in ripe harvested grapes. In Styria, superb top wines with great development potential are produced, which are among the best worldwide.

The Sauvignon Blanc Kitzeck-Sausal is a classic village wine exclusively from grapes grown around Kitzeck in Southern Styria. The Kitzeck-Sausal appellation within Southern Styria is a geological peculiarity, as the soils are significantly older than in the rest of Southern Styria and were formed over 400 million years ago along with the Central Alps. The landscape is therefore rougher, which is reflected around the village of Kitzeck not only in impressively steep vineyards with direct access but also in numerous terraced systems. The difference from the highest point of the hills to the valley floor is usually over 200 meters and is also evident in the particular steepness of the vineyards. The vineyards are mostly located at altitudes from 380 to 650 meters, which contributes to good ventilation of the vines.

Sauvignon Blanc Kitzeck-Sausal – A Wine and Its Values

• Origin Austria
• Growing region Southern Styria
• Village wine Kitzeck-Sausal
• Grape variety Sauvignon Blanc
• vegan
• sustainably certified
• 12.5% vol. Alcohol
• 6.8 g/l Acidity
• 2.8 g/l Residual sugar