Weingut Familie Bauer Urig Roter Veltliner Niederosterreich Austria 2023

Josef and Eva Maria Bauer farm 17 certified-organic hectares in the Wagram, the stretch of Niederösterreich whose deep drifted loess is the natural home of Roter Veltliner, a rare old Austrian white. Urig, roughly 'rustic' in German, is their skin-fermented bottling: half a hectare of the Hinterberg vineyard, planted in 1973 on that loess and picked by hand in the third week of October. The destemmed fruit ferments spontaneously in 600-liter barrels with no temperature control and stays on its skins for about eleven months, pressed just before the next harvest, then rests on its lees in the same barrels and goes to bottle unfiltered. Yellow plum and green apple ride a rich, textured frame with a peppery, herbal edge. Orange wine as a terroir statement, not a style exercise.