The Rebenhof: Cellar Experience with Winery Tour - Wachau

The Rebenhof - Hartmut Aubell
I have been running our winery, the Rebenhof, since 2008; it has been in the family since 1924, but I am the first winemaker in our family. My viticultural career has taken me via the Kremstal, Weingut Sepp Moser, the Wachau, Weingut Emmerich Knoll, Burgenland and Schloss Halbthurn. In Germany, I settled in the Saar, at the Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken winery. In France, I spent a year in Bordeaux, Chateau Hermitage, and then went to Didier Dagueneau in the Loire for another year. I returned home in 2007.

I cultivate 9.5 hectares of vines, both on extremely steep slopes and terraces. We work according to biodynamic guidelines and, according to Austrian legislation, we will be able to obtain DEMETER certification with the 2016 vintage. My yield per hectare is around 2000 to 2500 liters. The grape varieties on my farm are Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, Gelber Muskateller, Pinot Blanc and Welschriesling. My oldest vineyard was planted in the 1940s. I am committed to preserving old vines. We also continue this natural work in the cellar.
I give my wines the time they need. We work with stainless steel tanks, and the wood, Austrian oak, is becoming more and more important to me. I have barrel sizes from 100 to 500 liters. We also differentiate between the thickness of the “barrel staves”, i.e. the wall thickness. That's why I also make a wine in 4 to 6 different types of maturation.

Nothing is added or removed from my wines, we do not use any enzymes, pure yeasts, sugar or fining agents. So if a wine does not convert 100% of its sugar content, we are happy and use the residual sugar to give our wines even more naturalness. In order to do justice to our environment and the CO2 footprint, we only use our rainwater for the vineyard; we are switching to lightweight glass bottles, which reduces the weight by approx. 150 g per bottle; we also only use recycled paper and cardboard for packaging. This will also have an impact on the design of our labels in the future. Our own forest is used for biomass heating. Composting is carried out according to strict Demeter guidelines.