Heidi is like the cool aunt who bought you beer in highschool and introduced you to singers like Janis Joplin. This maven of Rust has spent her life fostering its culture and traditions. A place... Read More

Heidi is like the cool aunt who bought you beer in highschool and introduced you to singers like Janis Joplin. This maven of Rust has spent her life fostering its culture and traditions. A place she has intimate knowledge of as the 8th matriarch of her family estate.

Her collection of vineyards surrounds the town on well drained slopes of gravel, sand, clay and limestone soil. Even though she’s got very old vines she’s still experimenting with new varieties and training techniques, trying to stay ahead of the world’s rapidly changing weather patterns.

Heidi was a founding member of Cercle Ruster Ausbruch, an organization formed by the few remaining Ausbruch producers. Once the most famous wine of Austria, it had fallen out of fashion and was nearly lost to antiquity. The group has also replanted Furmint, the main grape in Hungarian Tokaj, celebrated for its high acidity and sensitivity to botrytis. It disappeared after phylloxera wiped it out but is not being prized once more for both sweet and dry wines.

The dry wines of the estate are split between classic and modern cuveés, like her old-vine Blaufrankisch and wild Rosé Biscaya. The sweet wines though, especially the whimsical sounding Wings of Dawn belong in every collectors cellar.