Winery REEH, Andau
“It has to be a passion, not a science,” Hannes Reeh always likes to say when he talks about drinking wine. The winemaker combines long-standing family tradition and the authenticity of a true Burgenländer with wine experience from the New World. The result of his work: accessible wines that convince both laymen and die-hard connoisseurs.
It’s good to live under the Andau sun – as a person and as a vine. With around 2400 hours of sunshine per year, Andau is the sunniest place in Austria – at the same time, less than 500 millimetres of annual precipitation make it one of the places with the least rainfall in the country. The Pannonian climate is made for good wine, because under these circumstances extraordinarily ripe grapes grow, producing wines of elegant power and fullness. As one would expect from the Pannonian steppe, the soils under Hannes Reeh’s vineyards are for the most part poor and gravelly.
Some things are true of all Hannes Reeh wines: they have no unnecessary ballast, are strong in character and bring the taste of the Heideboden into the bottle. And yet each variety has its own special features. The wines of the Andau winemaker are divided into four groups: The “Haus und Hof” wines are single-varietal and offer completely uncomplicated drinking pleasure; they are simply the winery’s classics. The wines under the title “Heideboden” combine aromatics and dense body with fine freshness. The “Unplugged” wines, on the other hand, get by without any frills, i.e. without fining and cosmetics. And the new “In Bloom” line comes across as intense and complex – just “in full bloom”, like the Nirvana song.
