Winter is here, finally!

Der Winter ist da, endlich!

Find the English version below. 

In dieser Ausgabe:
- Winterschnitt
- Kellerarbeit

Winterschnitt
Der Sage nach, hat ein ausgerissener Esel in einem Mönchskloster viele Triebe von Rebstöcken abgefressen. Die Mönche beobachteten daraufhin, dass die Trauben dieser Stöcke süsser schmeckten als die der Stöcke, die nicht gestutzt wurden. Daraus soll sich der Rebschnitt entwickelt haben.
Das Zurückschneiden der Reben ist der erste wichtige Schritt und die Basis für die Qualität der Trauben, da dadurch schon jetzt die Weichen für die Anzahl der Triebe und dadurch auch die Menge an Trauben gelegt wird.
Ein Video zu dieser Arbeit finden Sie auf unserer Startseite und auf Youtube..
Ein kurzes Video zu dieser Arbeit finden Sie hier.

KellerarbeitWir beginnen schön langsam mit den Verkostungen für die Abfüllung der Weißweine 2015 der PURE Linie. Anfang März dürfen wir Ihnen den Welschriesling Pure 2015,Sauvignon Blanc Pure 2015 und den Zweigelt Rosé Pure 2015 präsentieren.
Bereits jetzt ist der Zweigelt Frizzante 2015 zum Vorteilspreis im Onlineshop verfügbar. Der Frizzante zeigt sich unglaublich erdbeer- und himbeerfruchtig, unterlegt mit einer feinen Perlage und mit gutem Trinkfluss.

Winterliche Grüße aus Halbturn
Franz Schneider

Winter is here, finally!

In this issue:
- Winter pruning
- Cellar work

Winter pruning
As the story goes a donkey, who strolled around in the vineyards of a monastery gnawed on shoots of some vines. The monks discovered that the grapes of these vines were much sweeter than the others. That's how pruning was invented.
Winter pruning is the first to ensure the quality of our grapes as we influence the number of shoots and as result the yield of our vines.
A short clip on this work may be found here.

Cellar work
Beside the work in the vineyards we started tastings for bottling of the white wines 2015 of our PURE range. We are looking forward to presenting Welschriesling Pure 2015, Sauvignon Pure 2015 and Zweigelt Rosé Pure 2015 with the beginning of March.
Already available and now on discount in our Onlineshop is the new Zweigelt Frizzante 2015. The wine displays a wonderful strawberry and raspberry fruit with nice fine bubbles on the palate.

Best regards
Franz Schneider

Artisan Wines News in Dezember

Christmas

Unbelievably fast this last year has gone by ... again! In the days of advent the vines and we come to rest the first time since the harvest in September. Our wines are maturing in the tanks and barrels and even the vines, which lost the leafs by now, are relaxing from this years efforts. The winter pruning at Artisan Wines will start traditionally not before January to give our vines some more time to gather strength for the next season.

Artisan Halbturn Red 

Still in time for the Christmas holiday the new vintage of the Artisan Halbturn Red 2009 hits the shelves. This wine was bottled in May and had some time to get some bottle ageing since then.
Vibrant aromas of blackberries, cherries and sour cherries perfectly supported by velvety tannins are making this wine the ideal companion for hearty food and cold winter evenings in front of the crackling fireplace.

Pannonian Christmas Market

The Pannonian Christmas Market located in castle Halbturn is opening today. Find some more information about the dates and program here.

Have a gorgeous advent and some relaxing Christmas holidays.

Artisan Wines News in November

Saint Martin and the new wine

Blessing of the new wines and St. Martins day
Our parton's day "Saint Martin" in Burgenland is today, the 11th of November. According to the legend a flock of geese revealed the hide of Saint Martin and he was made bishop of Tours against his will. In his honour the traditional meal is Martinigoose with red cabbage and dumplings. We recommend as perfect pairing for this dish our Halbturn Red 2008.
The blessing of the wine will be held this Saturday 12th of November at 6 p.m. in the local wine shop in Halbturn. You will have the chance to taste some new wines afterwards.

First wine 2011 
The first wine of the vintage is traditionally our Pure Welschriesling 2011. This wine shows upfront aromas of green apples, hay and white flowers on the nose. On the palate one will find bursting flavors of citrus fruits and spices. This is the perfect partner for your Sunday Schnitzel or as starter on it's own.

New partners
We are delighted to announce two new partners for Artisan Wines. 

Handlavin.se
Peder Molin
http://www.handlavin.se/
Stockholm, Sweden

Die Weinbar
Schottenfeldgasse 92
1070 Wien
http://www.dieweinbar.at/

Enjoy this beautiful fall with new wines and delicious food!

Sincerely
Franz Schneider

Artisan Wines in Sweden

A small step for mankind but a giant leap for Artisan Wines. Our full range of wines will be available via http://www.handlavin.se/ in Sweden.

Most recent clip on Artisan Wines

Last weekend we were visited by a group of passionate wine lovers from Sweden. Handlavin.se sell soley Austrian Wines via a webshop in Sweden and we had fun trying the full range of Artisan Wines.

Peder is also an accomplished vlogger and you will find his interview just below. Enjoy!

Artisan Wines News in October

In the cellar
On the last days of this wonderful September we managed to pick the last very delicious and ripe grapes for Artisan Wines. The perfect weather conditions helped to ripen the tannin in the berries and produced highly aromatic grapes. You won't have to wait to long to taste the first wine of this vintage. Currently we are already preparing to bottle the first batch of a fruit forward and spicy Pure Welschriesling 2011. It will hit the shelves after the blessing of the wines at Saint Martins day on 11th November 2011.

Pumpkin time
Enjoy the fruits of the fall with our recipes of regional and traditional food like pumpkins, cabbage and game. Find the best fall recipes at Artisan Wines - Wine & Food 

Artisan Wines News in September

Harvest 2011
Our harvest startet last weekend with early ripening Saint Laurent. We took the chance of the good weather to pick the grapes for our Sauvignon Blanc as well. In the last third of it's fermentation the Pure Sauvignon Blanc "Sturm" releases scents of ripe pears, gooseberries and pineapples.
Thursday we brought in the first batches of Welschriesling and the next week will be devoted to pick the better part of our Zweigelts. Last grapes to come in will be the Merlot for our "The Artisan" 2011.
One will find real time news of harvest at Facebook - Artisan Wines and Twitter.

Two new wines
The Pure Line is joined by the Pure Saint Laurent 2010. The wine shows a middle red hue with purple reflexions, unoaked fruit forward style, upfront red berries with hints of blackberries, fresh and lovely with an intense mid palate and well balanced tannin structure, cherry flavors with lucious red currant and rose hip follows through.

The second wine to hit the shelves is our flagship wine "The Artisan" 2009. "The Artisan" is always sourced from the best and oldest vineyards and will please lovers of age-worthy bold wines. A blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Zweigelt matured in 100% new barriques. As this wine will come in tiny quantities (283 hand-signed and numbered bottles!), be quick to save your share.

Please let us know how you like our wine at Artisan Wines on Facebook and as Wine comment respectively. We are looking forward to reading your takes on our wines.

Artisan Wines News in August

Veraison
Veraison

The Veraison or the changing of the color of our grapes especially at Saint Laurent is nearly done whereas our late ripening Merlots are just spotting some blue berries. For the rest of August I am hoping for warm and sunny weather (like the most of us) to ensure optimal ripeness. Harvest will start in about 2 to 3 weeks at Artisan Wines and we've got loads of things to prepare in the cellar.

Pure Rosé offer
Summer is definitely the best time to enjoy a refreshing glass of Rosé. To make our Pure Rosé even tastier it comes 20% off in August if ordered in our Online-Shop and for ex cellar door sales.
Please let us know how you like our wine best at Artisan Wines on Facebook and as Wine comment respectively. We are looking forward to reading your takes on our wines.

Sustainability report
Artisan Wines celebrated his first birthday on May 1st, 2011. With our annual Sustainability report we would like to share our artisanal way of making wine in a carbon free manner. Special thanks goes to you as consumers of our wines. With every glass you are supporting climate protection projects and our nature in a direct way.

Artisan Wines News in July

Flowering and Summertime

Flowering and Fruit set

This years flowering of our vines happened rather early at the end of May. Not really surprising though. Just think about the warm spring temperatures. I am quite pleased with the fruit set, especially with our Welschriesling vineyards. The Saint Laurent vines are still suffering a bit from last years cold weather conditions during bloom. 

This year we've started an internal trial for our Zweigelt vines. All clusters were cut in half right after bloom. On the one hand this action causes looser grapes and on the other hand we've brought down the yield early to reduce the stress, caused by drought, of our vines. Thinning of the Merlot grapes is done the "traditional" way and one will find a clip of this work at Artisan Wines and Artisan Wines on Youtube.

Summer loves RoséAbsolutely perfect with hot summer nights goes a glass of ice-cold Pure Rosé. In a self-experiment we've tested some versions - pure, Aperol-Spritz, "normal" Spritzer, iced strawberry punch. My personal favorite was "normal" Pure Rosé Spritzer as it was the most refreshing version :-)
Please let us know how you like our wines best at Artisan Wines on Facebook or as Wine comment.

New partners
We are happy to announce two new distributors and one Marketing partner for Artisan Wines as of June 2011.

Wein&Co Handelsges.m.b.H.19x in Österreich
SCS, Autoallee 7, Top 25
2334 Vösendorf-Süd

Der Wein Push
Fritz-Arnold-Strasse 16
78467 Konstanz

Burgenland Tourismus
Johann Permayer-Strasse 13
A-7000 Eisenstadt
www.burgenland.info

Please find our detailed Partner list here. 

The artisanal way to close bottles

Follo wthe link below and see how we close Magnum bottles at Artisan Wines. Just those which don't fit into our bottling line though :-)

The artisanal way to close bottles

Artisan Wines News in June

Weather conditions

Vineyard work
Warm temperatures and enough water ensured a quick growth of our vines. Currently we are rather busy with the shoot positioning and with this quick development you may start at the other end of the vineyard as soon you finished one row. One will find the clips of this work at Artisan Wines and Artisan Wines on Youtube.

Huge damage for the vineyards of our friend Rudi Wagentristl brought a hailstorm in the first days of May. Have a close look of the devastations at his blog.

Ratings
We are very proud to announce that our Artisan Wines Pure Rosé 2010 came on second to top (category Zweigelt - rated 2 glasses) in the recent Rosé tasting of Wein Burgenland in cooperation with Genuss.Magazin. Download the complete article with this link - Rosé Verkostung. (german version only) 

Asparagus season
As always one will find seasonal recipes at our Artisan Wines - Wine&Food section with the asparagus special now. The new Smörgastorta recipe pairs very well with the current warm temperatures. 

Pure Sauvignon Blanc
Most unfortunately we need to announce that our Pure Sauvignon Blanc 2010 is sold out ex cellar.

Kind regards
Franz Schneider

Artisan Wines News in May

Work in the vineyards

The nice temperatures made our vines growing rather fast and this means loads of vineyard work for us. The recent work steps are cleaning the stems and the Shoot removal. With this work we are reducing the shoots and the yield per vine. The remaining shoots will grow stronger and healthier with all power focused on them. One will find the clip at Artisan Wines News and Youtube - Artisan Wines.

Birthday of Artisan Wines
Quite unnoticed passed the first birthday of Artisan Wines on the 1st of May. I would like to thank my family and friends for their huge amount of work, our partners and of course you, dear customer, as without you, Artisan Wines would not exist. As we are trying to get better every year we are looking forward to your comments at franz@artisanwines.at

New partners
We very proud to welcome following partners at Artisan Wines. You will find our wines now at:  

Heuriger-Vinothek SchlossahausStefan Haubenwallner
Stiftsgasse 18
7123 Mönchhof

St. Martins Therme & Lodge Restaurant
Im Seewinkel 1
7132 Frauenkirchen

BUNT Das Eventrestaurant
Hietzinger Hauptstrasse 162
1130 Wien

Cucina Wetter
Payergasse 13/4, Ecke Weyprechtgasse
1160 Wien

Weinstadl Bad Tatzmannsdorf
Tschabbachweg 17
7431 Bad Tatzmannsdorf

Find more contact details to this partners here.

Recent wine ratings
We are proud to present the first ratings of our wines this year. Magazine "Wein.Pur" mentioned us in their "Best of Austria 2011"-guide on page 211. Please find a small excerpt of the ratings below:

Pure Sauvignon Blanc 2010 - very good price-value ratio
Pure Rosé 2010 - tip of the editors & very good price-value ratio
Halbturn White 2009 - good ageing potential for several years

We are very pleased with these good ratings for our wines but the most important rating is yours. Think about to add your wine comments here!

Artisan Wines News in April

Clips and tastings

New clips
The recent video clip features the first two steps of the vineyard work at Artisan Wines. The Pruning and the Binding of the shoots is the foundation to an even canopy development and determines a huge part of the yield and therefore both steps are crucial in producing high quality grapes. One will find the clip at Artisan Wines News and Youtube - Artisan Wines.

Restructuring Wine&Food-page
We've changed the structure of our Artisan Wines - Wine&Food section. New sections are "soups", "summer recipes", "South Africa" and Asparagus recipes". The face-lift helps you to find your  favorite recipe much quicker than before.

Tasting opportunities
The next opportunity to taste our wines will be on 8th of April 2011 at 5 p.m. at theSt. Martins Spa & Lodge. We are looking forward to pour our complete range of wines at this occasion. If you enjoy dinner at St. Martins restaurant look out for our wines. They are available by the glass!
On 14th of April 2011 we will present our wines as part of the "Wein Burgenland" wine fair at the Radisson Blu Carlton Hotel, Hviezdoslavovo námestie 3 in Bratislava.
We are looking forward to welcoming you at both events!

Artisan Wines News in March

Vineyards and Bottling

Todays vineyard work
As temperatures are finally heading towards spring the next step of work in the vineyards will be the binding of the shoots. All the left shoots per vine will be tied to the trellising system as first step to develop an even canopy. One will find the clips in about no time at Artisan Wines-News or Youtube. 

Bottling of PURE Rosé 2010
Spring is really on the doorstep now and therefore we are proud to present the perfect poolside wine for this season. The PURE Rosé 2010 combines upfront strawberry and raspberry flavors with lively texture on the palate. Available in our Online Shop.

Change in Shipping policy
Due to popular demand we have changed our Shipping and Payment policy for private customers with immediate effect. Find more information on this subject in this Special Newsletter.

This months tastings
The next opportunity to taste our wines in Vienna will be on 10th of March 2011 at 3 p.m. at the "Wein Burgenland" wine fair in the Hofburg, Vienna. Find some more information here.

Merry Christmas

Once more "The Franz Schneider Wine Experience" blog is going to change it's direction ... actually it is a step back to where I've started this blog.

Main focus of the "The Franz Schneider Wine Experience" will be my travels in the wine world (I'am heading South again ... South Africa I'coming again !!) and all the works done during the year at Artisan Wines.

The Artisan Wines section will be labeled with "artisan wines" and will include some video clips too, starting with "Pruning the vines" in January. All clips will also be found at www.artisanwines.at.

My tasting notes will shift to the other blog "wines of the month".

Another new feature will be a recipe blog written by Ulli. Some delicous delights and regional food paired with our Artisan Wines will be published at "The herbs and I" soon.

As today is the 24th of December I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2011. I am looking forward to more wine adventures and challenges. If you are in Burgenland some time do not hesitate to pop in for a glass (or two).

Franz

P.S. You may stay in contact via Facebook and Twitter too ;-)

Harvest and EWBC 2010 Vienna

Took a little while for this post but on the other hand .. harvest is finished.

This year was an unusually cold and wet one here in Austria. Cool Spring temperatures shifted the flowering about 2 weeks backwards with a heat spike just in the flowering week followed by torrential rain. As everybody knows that pretty bad for the fruit set. Sensitive varieties like Saint Laurent, Muskat, Chard and Pinot Blanc responded with close to 30 to 40 percent less yield. This crazy weather continued over the summer and brought us perfumed grapes due to high differences in day-night-temps, low sugar contents, high acidity and loads of canopy work in the vineyards resulting in an elegant but small harvest at Artisan Wines.

Our reds are currently untasteable due to the fact of ongoing Malolactic Fermentation ... everything keeps it's raspberry yoghurt touch on the nose .. but this will vanish as soon as the MLF is finished and the diacetyl is transformed afterwards.

The whites were racked off this week and are now waiting for lower outside temps for stabilization purposes.

Last night some 80 attendees of this years European Wine Blogger Conference (#EWBC) gathered at the Badeschiff for the Kick-off dinner. Important fact: Everyone was allowed to bring the own wines which resulted in a happy radom tasting of Schilcher Sturm, Grand vins de Bourgogne, Riojas and Artisan Wines.

The 3-course-meal started with fingerfood (very nice and spicy !!).

First course was a tartar of salmon trout, Viennese potatoe salad and field salad.

Main course: Braised shoulder of lamb, Swede oriental style.

Desert: Créme caramel, tonka bean and citrus food.

All in all well made but rather small portions. One can find certainly better restaurant nearby!

Anyway interesting people, glasses full of nice wine and exiting converstation made this a gorgeous evening. I can not wait to join the others for todays first conference day!!

New Artisan Wines website launched

Now finally we got our new Artisan Wines website.

Try this link: www.artisanwines.at and please let me know your impression.

cheers

Franz

Exiting things ...

Beside my job at Wein&Co - Shop Luegerring things with Artisan Wines are gathering momentum too.

The white wines (Pure Welschriesling and Aritsan Halbturn White) were bottled last week. The red wines (Pure Zweigelt and Artisan Halbturn Red) are going to be bottled this week. "The Artisan", the flagship wine, is maturing in new French barriques for another 10 months.

But not everything is sunshine and roses. The printing company keeps me waiting for the labels since 4 weeks now. Personally I think they are not interested in such a small production as it is a lot of work and doesn´t bring a lot of bucks. On the other hand ... what is more important than customer service in times like this! One thing is for sure ... this fall I will definitely order my labels somewhere else.

Much easier is the work with the programmer. He is busy with the last steps of the new Artisan wines webpage. Some interesting features: videos of our work during the year, post your own tasting note of any Artisan Wine, Online-Shop, monthly Newsletter, interactive communication via Twitter and Facebook ... and starting with April 2010:

The Artisan Wines "Wine.Talks"!!!

The Wine.Talks will take place in Halbturn. You are going to experience exiting wines in a relaxed but entertaining atmosphere. Stay tuned for the latest news at www.artisanwines.at

New vineyard pics ..

New vineyard pics are available !!! Have a look at Facebook | Artisan Wines Enjoy!

a bud:

Artisan Wines - Labels

Finally we got there. The Artisan Wines labels have left the graphic design studio. Actually I am very proud about this new labels as the designer managed to capture all important things.

The Artisan logo is a combination of traditional (the wine leaves) and modern style (font). Puristic by with style.

Most important is the "Step closer to nature - Zero CO2"-footprint. It states that all Artisan wines are carbon free produced. Our production is and will be constantly evaluated.

The footprint is created by a heart shaped leaf, the toes are represented by abstract grapes and a drop of wine creates the heel. This is the symbol of our cohesive relation to the enviromentally friendly way of producing the Artisan wines.