2023 Wetzer Kékfrankos

Péter Wetzer's village-level Kékfrankos brings together organically farmed parcels from several vineyards in Sopron, planted between 1970-1979 across diverse soils of mica-schist, loam, limestone, clay, and red gravel. The 2.5 hectares of late-ripening vines are often harvested in late October into November. Hand-harvested grapes are destemmed and spontaneously fermented with whole berries in open vats for 18-22 days with manual punchdowns for light extraction. The wine is basket-pressed and aged in used 500-liter Hungarian oak barrels on the lees before being bottled unfined and unfiltered by gravity with minimal sulfur addition. The 2023 vintage is bright, lifted and exceptionally pure, leading with sour cherry, wild strawberry, rose, and savoury spice, framed by fine, lightly herbal tannins and a cool camphor inflected mineral line. Compared with the single-vineyard bottlings, this cuvée is more open, red-fruited and immediate.