Quite a bright idea

Quite abright IDEA

The estate, founded in 1998 by Johannes Gebeshuber, is located in the historic town of Gumpoldskirchen, thirty kilometres south of Vienna in the Thermenregion, a winegrowing region named for the local thermal springs.

Johannes has focussed precisely upon those grape varieties that have made Gumpoldskirchen famous and held in high regard such as the white varieties Zierfan-

dler and Rotgipfer, as well as the reds Sankt Laurent and Pinot Noir.

Johannes Gebeshuber founded his estate in 1998, as a young, dynamic – and above all, curious – self-taught individual. At this juncture he owned between two and three hectares of vines – a family possession – and vinifed the wines in the cellar belonging to his in-laws. It was not long before his operation grew to eight hectares with a total of twenty-fve grape varieties, all planted as monovarietal parcels yielding sparkling wines, still wines and sweet wines.

He soon came to concentrate on the essentials, on those wines that were truly most important to him and made the most sense to him.

“Quite a bright idea,” he comments, looking back contentedly upon the decision he made then, to reduce the number of hectares under cultivation and to no longer let himself be led by the market.

There are forty-two distinct parcels spread out over twenty-fve hectares under cultivation. The individual vineyards bear the resonant names Modler (Zierfandler), Laim (Rotgipfer), Viereck (Pinot Noir) and Glas (Sankt Laurent). The oldest vines have today reached the venerable age of eighty years, while the youngest are seventeen.

The result is wines of notable composure and style, which represent the spearhead of the Thermenregion. Puristic, clear, refned – just like the winegrower Gebeshuber.

“I was not as loud as some of the others.” says Johannes. Born in 1968, he speaks with certainty about his development as a winegrower.

Not born to the plough, for his parents had met during their student days in Vienna. Also, as a self-taught winegrower he was obliged to fnd his own path at frst, cope with inevitable setbacks and set off in new directions.

Johannes’s father is a structural analyst, and was part of the team that designed the Vienna Underground; he had bought the frst vineyards as an investment. Johannes never had in mind, though, to follow in his father’s footsteps – but nevertheless he decided to study economics –while along with this he began to become more and more intensely interested in wine.

One of his frst voyages of discovery in this feld led him to Burgundy, where he was most highly impressed by a white grand cru Corton-Charlemagne.

And in the realm of red wine as well, he was inspired by the treasures of Burgundy: In Vosne-Romanée he tasted a particularly dark – but for this, even more elegant – Pinot Noir, a Richebourg from the cult domain Ann Gros.

At the beginning, Johannes saw himself confronted with great challenges, because he recognised that the representative wines Zierfandler and Rotgipfer frst had to fnd their way back in to the culinary culture of the Thermenregion. “Looking at wine lists, I saw all the other winegrowing regions there – almost exclusively – Wachau, Burgenland and Südsteiermark.

“You could only fnd Zierfandler and Rotgipfer at the Heurigen back then.” umlaut 17