The founding steps of our winery were laid by my parents - Rosi and Franz - in the late 1970s. My mother graduated from viticulture school in Eisenstadt and was subsequently working at her parents winery in Sankt Margarethen, Burgenland. My father was a professor for cellar management in Eisenstadt and merged his 3 hectare of vineyards to the family winery. As my father kept being a full time professor my mother took on the main role of head winemaker and therefore they decided to name their winery after her, Rosi Schuster.
I started making wine while still at school in Klosterneuburg in 2000 - bottling a cuvée based on Chardonnay and one based Sankt Laurent. Especially native Sankt Laurent was less fashionable and little used in my family's estate which was mainly focused on international / French varieties back at that time. Nevertheless, to me, it represented a great medium to experiment and vinify wines without the pressure of existing customers of our estate - in a way my parents allowed me to discover my own direction without putting too much pressure on my first releases. In the cellar I was trying to minimize the impact of oak and chose to only work with spontaneous fermentation and long leese aging from day 1.
Change of generations. When my father fell ill in 2005, I joined the winery, which now covers twelve hectares of vineyards, and managed it together with my parents. In 2007, after my father's death, my mother Rosi Schuster transferred the winery to me. Together with her, I had restructured it in the meantime, converted it to organic farming and decided that the name should remain unchanged.
With the handover of the business, I placed my main focus on the grape varieties Blaufränkisch and Sankt Laurent. I sold, cleared or exchanged the vineyards with international grape varieties, which is why the vineyard area of my farm even shrank a little.
Origin. I believe in a clear vision of my origin. Burgenland, one of Europe’s oldest and most exciting region and its geological foundation of the Pannonian basin, shaped by its soft rolling hills stands at the core of this idea. Indigenous varieties help translate this origin and allow me to bottle true reflections of the region.
Varieties. Sankt Laurent and Blaufränkisch represent more or less 75% of our annual production of 50000 bottles. Around 12000 bottles are made from white wine varieties such as Grüner Veltliner and Furmint.
Vineyards. My vineyards are split across 40 small parcels spread over six villages - Sankt Margarethen, Zagersdorf, Oslip, Schützen Am Gebirge, Donnerskirchen and Müllendorf. In total we cultivate 14 hectares of which 13 hectares are currently producing grapes. Since 2014 we are certified organic. Due to the tiny nature of my single vineyards we (currently) bottle all our wines as village Crus rather than single-vineyards.
'I have a big problem with the wine law in Austria. Because you can more or less do anything to the wine - add sugar or acidty; filter and fine etc. Wines made this way are always allowed to name their origin on the label. Except that these wines, have had the place stripped out of them'
Nevertheless, I make hundreds of decisions over the year - because wine does not grow by itself, but must be accompanied in its development.
My wines are created in the vineyard. There, the vines, deeply rooted in our healthy soils, lay the foundation. We harvest the ripe grapes exclusively by hand and process them gently. In the cellar I give them a correspondingly long ripening period, characterized by rest and not by intervention. Only then do wines emerge with balance, delicacy and timeless elegance. Of this I am convinced.