Jagini Zagersdorf 2017

A dry Blaufränkisch with cool, direct fruit: dark cherry, blackberry and black pepper. At 13.5% vol., the wine stays lean; its density comes from the tiny yield of old vines, not from alcohol or oak. The 2017 vintage has enough bottle age to open up without losing its tension.

Zagersdorf lies in Burgenland. Here, Roland Velich's Jagini project preserved the village's last old Blaufränkisch vines, planted at a time when the variety had not yet been bred for yield. They bear little fruit but yield concentrated grapes. Moric farms its 22.5 hectares of vineyards biodynamically, so the vines express their terroir unfiltered.

Blaufränkisch, also known as Lemberger, is the lifelong focus of Roland Velich, who founded Moric in 2001. In the cellar, he works with radical restraint: spontaneous fermentation in open wooden vats, 22 days of maceration, followed by 20 months of aging on fine lees in large, used wood. No fining, no filtration. The result is a texture that stays silky yet retains tension.

The entry is cool and precise. Black cherry and blackberry remain tautly held, the acidity carries the wine through the mid-palate, the tannin is fine-grained and dry. On the finish, pepper and herbal spice return and linger long.

James Suckling ranks Moric among the world's nine best wineries, and Falstaff named Roland Velich Winemaker of the Year in 2023. Yet the Jagini Zagersdorf is no prestige project, but a rescue mission for old vine material.