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The winery is located in the small, tranquil village of Balf, at the southern end of Lake Neusiedl. It is a small village, but the silence here is vast. Sky, earth, and water converge to form part of the UNESCO World Heritage region. Change is not always welcome here, not by the people, nor by the silence. But if you are persistent yet not too loud, you are allowed to go your own way. While the storks look on benevolently from their nests.
Here in the east of Hungary lies the wine region of Sopron: predominantly red wine is cultivated on the more than 1,900 hectares of vineyards between Lake Neusiedl and the Sopron mountains – a zone where Pannonian and subalpine terrrains converge. The foothills of the Alps bring coolness, the lake stores warmth, and the ground willingly submits to cultivation.
Franz Reinhard Weninger, born in 1979, grew up on his parents’ wine estate in central Burgenland. Only a few kilometres from the lake, close enough to the wine. In Horitschon he not only learned the art of making wine from his father, but in doing so also discovered his great passion. After graduating from enology school in Klosterneuburg, he did internships at Schloss Sallegg (Italy), Kendall-Jackson’s Vinwood Cellars, California (USA), and the Mundrakoona Estate (Australia). In 2000, having come closer to wine, he sought the geographic proximity and took over as enological and organizational director of the Balf estate near Sopron.
He is continuing a project begun by his father, who purchased the vineyards in this small village near the Austrian border in 1997. The Spern Steiner and Frettner sites are among the best in Hungary and have been cultivated for centuries. With continued success: in 2006 the wine magazine “Borbarat” ranked Franz Reinhard Weninger as number seven in its list of favorite Hungarian wineries.
The conversion to a biodynamic production method and the construction of a new cellar with a tasting room are strategies to successfully continue this course. And always, the storks look on benevolently.
The Building
In early 2004, a small competition was held with top-notch architects. The winning design came from the Vienna-based architecture firm propeller Z. In their plan, propeller Z fused aesthetic innovation and production functionality into an inseparable whole. The design also features a compellingly simple organization of space. The base of the facility consists of two large rooms – a cool cellar, which has been recessed into the slope in order to tap the geothermal energy, and a high-ceilinged, airy production hall. The architecture unobtrusively serves the demands of the work processes and the art of winemaking. A slightly sloping ramp allows the vintner to utilize gravity for filling the tanks beneath the protective awning.
Though the barrels lie undisturbed in the recessed cellar. there is still plenty for the visitor to see. Protruding from the front side of the hall is a cube which houses the office and tasting room. From here, through the glazed back wall one can look out onto the production hall and catch a glimpse of the wine’s journey to the cellar. If the visitor’s gaze in the tasting room wanders to the opposite wall, he sees the lake through the expansive window at the front of the cube, giving him an idea of the wonderful view the vines must have from their vantage point on the slopes. The new wine cellar has been in operation since the 2006 harvest.
“Pure and Simple”
The unique touch to his wine comes from bringing together the forces of nature. Franz Reinhard Weninger only intervenes if absolutely necessary. He tries to enhance the natural processes in the vineyard and the wine cellar, not to implement radical changes. In this way he manages to draw the soil characteristics, the terroir, into the wine as purely and as simply as possible.
The Weninger family had already been operating according to strict principles for quite some time, since 2006 the biodynamic method of cultivation at the winery in Balf has been monitored by Biokontroll Ungarn. Converting to a biodynamic production method (under the direction of the experienced agricultural economist Dr. Andrew Lorand) was simply the next logical step toward coming closer to nature and improving quality. This method is based on the ideas and ideals of the Austrian philosopher, teacher, and social activist Rudolf Steiner (1862–1925). In addition to the view of the farm as an organism, what the young winemaker believes in most are the promotion of local operations, the realization of a sustainable and environmentally friendly production method, and the view of farming processes as part of a continuous cycle.
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Production
500 hl per year, which is equivalent to 70,000 bottles (or roughly 5,840 cases)
Cellar
200,000 liters (barrels and tanks, 300 barriques)
Export
60 percent is sold in Hungary, 40 percent is exported (primarily to Austria, Germany, and Switzerland).
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The Team
Only happy people can make good wine. We are a heterogeneous blend of people, each of us a professional in his or her area. Every production step is important, but in addition to skills, personalities play a key role too:
Afra – Maintains a pleasant, friendly work atmosphere, likes to joke around. Franz – He runs the winery with his head in the clouds but nevertheless with both feet planted firmly on the ground. Lajos – Runs the office with cool complacency. If this man can’t handle it, then... Krisztina – ...takes over, especially when it comes to bookkeeping, but she’s also good at customer service. Gabor – He’s always everywhere, takes care of deliveries, runs errands...
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