Hirtzberger Franz Winery
"Varietal typicity, origin and vintage brought unadulterated to the bottle."
The Hirtzberger family
The Hirtzberger family has been producing wines in Spitz in the Wachau for five generations. The Grand Cru from the Singerriedel, Hochrain and Honigvogl vineyards are among the best that Austrian viticulture has to offer.
"Mister Singerriedel" - that's what Franz Hirtzberger Sr. likes to be called by his colleagues. It is the title of honour for a winegrower who has rendered outstanding services to viticulture in the Wachau.
He was chairman of Vinea Wachau for a long time and the driving force behind the quality of an entire generation. He himself is the fourth generation of the family based in Spitz an der Donau. Over the years, the family has been able to acquire some of the best sites in world-renowned vineyards. The top sites are the Singerriedel and Hochrain vineyards for Riesling and the Honigvogl vineyard for Grüner Veltliner. The family cultivates exclusively white varieties on 30 hectares, as is typical for the Wachau.
Tradition and modernity go hand in hand on the family farm. This also applies to the co-operation between Franz Sr. and Franz Jr. who has taken over the management of the cellar. They run a farm whose foundation walls date back to the 13th century, but a modern cellar was put into operation in 2000. The basis for great wines is, of course, laid in the vineyard, where no work is spared. Short pruning, intensive foliage work, strict yield control, rigorous selection and hand-picking in several passes to guarantee optimum ripeness are the cornerstones. What then arrives in the cellar is perfect grapes that are fermented spontaneously in stainless steel tanks and matured in traditional wooden barrels.
Images: Hirtzberger Franz Winery
