Pinot Noir Reserve Ried Langenloiser Käferberg

Käferberg sits above Langenlois, on what Weingut Bründlmayer describes as an east to south-east facing slope; the estate's figures for the site run from about 265 to 345 m. The soil is lime-rich clayey marine deposit, with the topsoil resting partly on sand and partly on primary rock, and the estate compares it to the soils of Château Petrus in Pomerol, crediting it for the density of the wine. Sourcing is less tidy than the label suggests: the counterlabel and the 2020 factsheet both put the fruit on Käferberg, while the estate's cuvée page names Dechant alongside it. Much of the vineyard is trained in the lyre system, which the estate says roughly doubles the illuminated and ventilated leaf surface, and yields are held to 2,500 litres per hectare. Bründlmayer has worked without chemical fertilisers or herbicides for more than forty years, has farmed organically since 2015 and is certified (LACON, AT-BIO-402), and uses pheromone confusion against grape moths across its main sites in place of sprays.

The 2020 was picked on 2 October, fermented with three weeks on the skins, then aged for around 24 months in 300 litre casks of first and second fill - Austrian oak, with the vintage sheet also citing Burgundian wood. It was bottled unfiltered in late September 2022 and held at least a further twelve months in bottle. The estate lists 13% alcohol and 5.4 g/l acidity, and the Ukrainian importer's label gives 1 g/l residual sugar. Kamptal DAC covers only white varieties - Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, joined from the 2024 vintage by Chardonnay, Weissburgunder and Grauburgunder - so a red grown here cannot carry it, and the wine is labelled with the broader origin instead, as Qualitätswein from Niederösterreich. A critic vintage report and an importer's notes on the Kamptal in 2020 describe a growing season far wetter than 2019, a summer short of the heat of 2018 and 2019, and botrytis pressure that made selection the defining skill; the estate's 2 October pick came early against a regional harvest that ran deep into the autumn.