The first thirty French barriques arrived at Hans Igler’s winery from Château Latour in 1981. More than four decades later, oak remains part of the cellar’s vocabulary, but Blaufränkisch is still the starting point. In Deutschkreutz, the family makes the grape into classic reds, vineyard wines and blends, keeping a distinctly Mittelburgenland identity through a change of generation.
Clemens Reisner and Anna Reisner-Iorillo have led the estate together since January 2021. He oversees the wines; she handles sales, marketing, communication and the Schaflerhof event venue. Their inheritance includes not only vineyards and bottles, but a former agricultural building that has become a substantial part of the estate’s life.
The business is rooted in a part of Austria where red wine defines the landscape. South of Lake Neusiedl and close to Hungary, Deutschkreutz belongs to a cluster of wine towns that has made Blaufränkisch a regional signature rather than a supporting variety.
A red-wine landscape on Austria’s eastern edge
Mittelburgenland occupies the Oberpullendorf basin, where clay, loam and sand meet outcrops of limestone. Towards the surrounding hills, harder rocks and gravel add further variation. The region’s deep, water-retaining soils are an important part of its suitability for red grapes.
The landscape is not uniformly heavy clay. Quaternary gravel terraces, loess and finer sediments occur alongside each other. Around Neckenmarkt and Ritzing, limestone adds another geological element; farther towards the basin, fine-textured deposits become more prominent.
Warm Pannonian conditions enter from the east, while hill ranges provide shelter from other directions. That combination gives a late-ripening grape such as Blaufränkisch time to mature. It also explains why Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zweigelt have found a place beside it.
Across the former Habsburg territories, the grape has travelled under several names. Austrian Wine’s grape guide identifies it with Lemberger in Germany and Kékfrankos in Hungary. At Deutschkreutz, the proximity of the Hungarian border gives that wider Central European identity a particularly tangible setting.
Blaufränkisch’s acidity and tannin structure distinguish it from a red wine built only around softness. Its capacity to mature is part of the attraction for growers prepared to hold wine in the cellar. At Igler, that patience takes several forms, from large oak vessels to longer periods in small barrels.
Blaufränkisch as a regional identity
The region has given that association with Blaufränkisch a formal expression through Mittelburgenland DAC. Classic, vineyard-designated and Reserve wines provide different expressions of regional origin, with the grape grown and processed within Mittelburgenland.
Classic wines emphasise fruit and spice, using steel or large oak rather than a pronounced small-barrel character. Vineyard wines allow a stronger expression and some used-barrel influence, while Reserve permits new small oak. The regional identity therefore accommodates more than one approach to maturation.
That context helps explain why an estate here can be committed to Blaufränkisch without making just one style of it. The variety is common ground; site and cellar work create differences. Igler’s large-oak Classic and longer-matured wines belong to a regional conversation about those choices.
The grape also has deep historical roots in Austrian wine. A 1777 description by the ampelographer Sebastian Helbling recorded Schwarze Fränkische among the valuable wine grapes around Vienna. Its present concentration in Burgenland is part of a longer Central European history.
In neighbouring countries, different names accumulated around the same variety. That history makes the border near Deutschkreutz less of a dividing line in grape culture than it appears on a political map. Blaufränkisch and Hungarian Kékfrankos are the same grape variety, even as individual regions and producers give their wines different identities.
The Igler family takes shape
Hans and Maria Igler began with one hectare in the 1960s. During the late 1970s, Hans put greater emphasis on quality and made Blaufränkisch central to his work. The 1981 barrel purchase became one of the defining decisions of that period.
French barriques introduced another tool into a winery working with local red grapes. They did not displace the vineyard identity: the range still includes wines carrying the names of individual sites around Deutschkreutz, alongside blends assembled from several varieties.
After Hans, Waltraud Reisner-Igler managed the estate from 1994 until the 2021 handover. Her responsibilities included domestic and international sales, while Wolfgang Reisner led production before sharing the cellar work with Clemens.
The next generation arrived gradually. Clemens made his first special-edition Blaufränkisch C1 in 2004 while still training, and gained experience in Australia and France. Anna joined in 2012 after studying English for international business and business communication in England.
Today their responsibilities bring wine production and the estate’s public life together. The Schaflerhof falls within Anna’s remit, alongside the work of selling the wines. Clemens’s interest in blending runs through cuvées in which Blaufränkisch shares the stage with Merlot, Zweigelt or Cabernet Sauvignon.
Hochberg, Fabian, Goldberg and Kart
The vineyards around Deutschkreutz include Hochberg, Fabian and Goldberg in the old Weingebirge, with Kart close to the Hungarian border. Clay and limestone characterise parts of the old Weingebirge; Kart combines gravel, loam and iron-rich ground.
Hochberg faces southwest, with soil composition changing along the slope. It is a reminder that a vineyard name can contain variation of its own. The upper, lower and middle parts of a hillside do not necessarily offer identical rooting conditions.
The names carry through into the wines. Cabernet Sauvignon is associated with Kart, Pinot Noir with Fabian and Chardonnay with Goldberg. Blaufränkisch remains prominent in the old Weingebirge, giving the estate’s leading grape several expressions without making it the only variety grown.
Such proximity is part of the appeal of this wine-growing area. A relatively concentrated landscape contains several combinations of exposure and soil. The estate can work with those differences while remaining firmly centred on Deutschkreutz.
Blaufränkisch in large oak and barrique
The 2018 Blaufränkisch Classic spent ten to twelve months in large oak vessels and was bottled at 13% alcohol. For the preceding vintage, vessel capacities ranged from about 1,500 to 3,200 litres.
That is a different cellar setting from the small barrels used for several reserve wines. Classic does not mean an absence of wood; it means a particular use of it. The grape remains on its own, without the additional varieties found in the blends.
Hochberg 2018 was also entirely Blaufränkisch, fermented in steel with ten days of maceration before eighteen months of maturation, partly in used barriques. The vineyard name and the longer barrel period bring another dimension to the same grape.
For Biiri 2018, the vines in the Altes Weingebirge were recorded as between 32 and 47 years old at harvest. The wine spent 22 months in barriques. Old-vine sourcing and extended maturation meet in a bottling that takes a slower route out of the cellar.
The changing proportions of Vulcano
Blending creates another strand of the Igler story. Vulcano 2017 brought together 40% Blaufränkisch, 22% Zweigelt, 25% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by eighteen months in barriques.
The 2016 wine used the same four grapes in different proportions: 40% Blaufränkisch, 15% Zweigelt, 30% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon. Its barrel maturation lasted fifteen months.
The dominant grape remained constant, but the supporting varieties and cellar timetable shifted. Vulcano is therefore a continuing cuvée rather than a recipe reproduced unchanged after every harvest. Older bottles are kept in a dedicated wine library at the Schaflerhof.
Ab Ericio 2016 took a different balance, with approximately 35% Blaufränkisch, 40% Merlot and 25% Zweigelt. After a 30-day maceration, it spent 22 months in barriques. Merlot, rather than Blaufränkisch, was the largest component.
Ricciolino 2018 combined roughly 40% Blaufränkisch with equal 30% shares of Merlot and Zweigelt. Its eighteen-month maturation used both large wooden vessels and previously used barriques. Even where the grapes overlap, the wines are not made along one uniform path.
Red wines beyond Blaufränkisch
At Kart, Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 received around 28 days of maceration and twenty months in barriques. The variety appears on its own here, rather than contributing a smaller share to Vulcano.
Pinot Noir from Fabian followed another programme in 2017: fermentation in steel, approximately 21 days of maceration and eighteen months in barriques. Its presence broadens a red-wine estate often identified principally with Blaufränkisch.
The classic selection also includes Zweigelt and St. Laurent. Their 2017 releases each spent eight to ten months in large oak and were bottled at 13% alcohol.
Zweigelt consequently has two lives in the cellar: a varietal bottling and a component of several blends. St. Laurent stands alongside it in the large-oak selection, giving the family a further Austrian red variety without the longer maturation of Biiri or Ab Ericio.
A small white-wine counterpoint
Goldberg supplies the name for the Chardonnay. The 2017 wine was fermented in barrel and matured for eight months, using both new and previously used wood.
Pinot Blanc 2019 took a shorter, steel-based route, with cool fermentation followed by a brief period in tank before bottling. The two whites add contrasting cellar methods to an estate whose public identity remains overwhelmingly red.
They also keep the discussion of oak in proportion. Wood is an important part of Igler’s history, but it is not applied in the same way to every wine. Barrel-fermented Chardonnay, large-oak Blaufränkisch and steel-handled Pinot Blanc occupy different parts of the cellar.
A sheep barn becomes a wine estate’s meeting place
The Schaflerhof predates the winery by centuries. Built around 1700 for sheep husbandry under the Esterházy estate, it later served cattle and dairy farming. The Reisner-Igler family acquired the property in 2004.
Planning began in 2005, followed by restoration and conversion from 2006 to 2008. The work created space for barrels, tastings and sales while retaining the building’s agricultural character.
Architect Anton Mayerhofer’s adaptation brought old fabric and a modern addition together. The restored roof structure is approximately seventy metres long and rises to around ten metres, giving the main venue a scale quite different from a small cellar tasting room.
Below ground, the Vulcano Vinothek occupies vaulted space once used for agricultural storage. Bottles now preserve another kind of harvest history there, linking the estate’s past releases with its present wines.
The Schaflerhof hosts weddings, private celebrations and business events, with a courtyard, garden and accommodation alongside the wine facilities. It has given a former working farm building another economic life without removing wine from the setting.
For the family, the building now sits beside the vineyard and cellar as part of what passes between generations. Clemens and Anna manage a business whose history can be followed through a bottle of Blaufränkisch, a barrel purchase in 1981 and the restoration of a much older property.
The central thread has survived those changes. Hans Igler remains a Deutschkreutz producer whose most important grape belongs to the region around it. The growing range and the Schaflerhof have added dimensions to that identity, but they have not moved its centre away from Mittelburgenland.
