Hannes Sabathi is passionate about the soil because it gives the wine its distinctive character. "This is what fascinates me, and, for me, this is where the truth in wine lies," says the winemaker. Or, in other words: "Great soil, great wine", as Sabathi likes to put it. His wines always show clarity and depth, precise soil characteristics and the individuality of the vintage. You can tell that this is a winemaker who not only knows his craft brilliantly but also knows how to take a step back. Sabathi creates his wines with a keen sense of the interplay between soil, grape variety and weather, which varies from year to year: "I don't think of myself as a winemaker because I don't make wine. The soil and the vintage make the wine," he explains.
A winemaker like Hannes Sabathi, who believes that "less is more", needs a lot of experience, trust in nature and, above all, patience. His dream has always been to create wines from different soils because each site has a very specific geological and mineral history that needs to be understood. Sabathi wants this individual character to live on in the wines. To achieve this, he intervenes as little as possible and lets nature take its course. Whether it be wines with the saline elegance of the Kranachberg, the dense minerality of the Jägerberg, the deep substance of the Ried Loren or the cool savouriness of the Kehlberg: What they all have in common, year after year, is their unique terroir. Only a soil expert like Hannes Sabathi can achieve this.
