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Esterházy Projekt No. 18 “Amarone” Blaufränkisch
At a Glance
Producer: Esterházy
Region: Leithaberg, Burgenland, Austria
Grape: 100% Blaufränkisch
Vintage: 2020
Alcohol: 16%
Production: 630 bottles
Pronounced: ESS-ter-HAH-zee BLAU-fren-kish
Why This Wine?
When I started looking for wines for our Oktoberfest month, I expected to learn more about Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. I did not expect to become completely distracted by Austrian red wine.
Then I tasted this.
Projekt No. 18 is an Amarone–style Blaufränkisch, and only 630 bottles were made. The first thing I noticed was the spice—sharp, peppery and inviting. Then came the ripe fruit and warmth, but with enough acidity to keep the whole thing fresh and balanced.
I absolutely loved it. So I bought twelve of the 630 bottles. And as of this writing, I only have 5 left.
What Is Blaufränkisch?
Blaufränkisch is one of Austria’s most important red grapes, especially in Burgenland. And it's really fun to say!
In Hungary, the same grape is called Kékfrankos (CAKE-frahn-kosh). In Germany and parts of the United States, it may be called Lemberger.
Blaufränkisch is known for dark cherry, blackberry, black pepper, savory spice, good acidity and noticeable tannin. Depending on where and how it is made, it can be light and juicy or serious and structured.
The black pepper I kept noticing is one of the grape’s signatures.
Blaufränkisch gives this wine its backbone. The Amarone-style treatment makes it bigger, darker and more concentrated, but the grape is still in there doing its job.
What Does “Amarone Style” Mean?
This is not technically Amarone.
True Amarone della Valpolicella comes from the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. It is normally made with local grapes such as Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella.
What Esterházy borrowed is Amarone’s defining process: drying the grapes before fermentation.
The Italian word for this is appassimento.
Drying removes water from the grapes. The sugars, flavors, acidity and other compounds become more concentrated, creating a wine with deeper fruit, more body and generally more alcohol.
For this wine, selected bunches of Blaufränkisch were dried on straw mats for 60 days. They then went through a long, slow wild fermentation, spent 30 days on the skins and aged for 22 months in French oak.
The finished wine is 16% alcohol.
It may seem that the wine would be sweet because the fruit is so ripe and concentrated, but it is dry, with only 1.7 grams per liter of residual sugar.
About Esterházy
The Esterházy family was one of the great aristocratic families of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The estate has records of wine production dating to 1652. The year 1758 on its labels refers to its oldest surviving cellar records.
The family was also deeply involved in music and the arts. Joseph Haydn worked for the Esterházy princes for nearly 30 years. Part of his compensation was reportedly paid in wine.
A very civilized payroll system.
Today, the winery farms 65 hectares divided among 21 vineyard parcels throughout Leithaberg. Its vineyards have been certified organic since the 2023 vintage.
Esterházy uses traditional oak barrels, clay amphorae and enormous concrete eggs containing basalt from an Esterházy quarry.
This is clearly not a winery interested only in repeating what it did 300 years ago.
The Projekt Wines
Esterházy calls this a Projekt wine.
These are tiny experimental batches that do not have to follow the winery’s usual regional styles or winemaking methods. The team begins with an idea and tests it through a small micro-vinification.
They have experimented with granite vessels, amphorae, carbonic maceration, dried grapes, fortified wine, white wine made from red grapes and wine made without added sulfur.
Not every experiment is bottled. Projekt No.18 was.
Pair With
The winery recommends steak, stew and ribs.
I would also pour it with short ribs, duck paté, smoked meat, lamb, aged cheese or anything with enough richness to meet the wine where it is.
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