WINEMAKING CRAFT...

building upon three generations of experience and pouring our heart and soul into our work results in excellent wine full of passion.

In a Salzl wine, you can taste our family’s enthusiasm for white, red and sweet wines. The majority of our wines are red wines, primarily Zweigelt and other Austrian and international varieties. Our winery also offers white wines, from fresh and fruity to complex and mineral whites, as well as noble sweet wines, thus covering the entire range of wines from Burgenland at the highest level.

Between the grapevines,

Our modern winery is situated in the middle of the vineyards, or „between the grapevines“ - Zwischen den Reben - as its address suggests. When you let your eyes wander over the extraordinary natural landscape of the Neusiedler See - Seewinkel National Park in the easternmost province of Austria, you will see that Illmitz is a place to feel at home, not only for the grapevines.

Our entire family from grandfather Heribert Salzl, to father Josef and son Christoph all enjoy living here. All three of us deliberately decided to become winemakers. We love the place where we live, and we love our work, which is our calling.

Josef, Josef, Anna, Heribert, Christoph ...

We see it as our task and aim to reflect the warmth and vastness of the region in our wines. While the lighter wines undergo classical vinification in steel tanks, the more mature wines age in small oak barrels.

In the Salzl family, winemaking is not just a craft. It is joy, experience and intuition that lead the family to find the ideal balance for every grape variety and vintage.

Winemaking in the Salzl family is a craft,

lasting and limitless.

passion...

Lake Neusiedl and the small salt lakes next to it, cool winds and long summers: these are the ideal conditions offered by the Seewinkel region for people – and grapevines – to feel at home here. The region produces white wines, red wines and sweet wines of exceptional quality.

The region produces white wines, red wines and sweet wines of exceptional quality. Countless hours of sunshine result in unequalled fruitiness and density. Even Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot, which is rarely found around the globe and is indispensable for making sweet wines such as Trockenbeerenauslese, is present around Lake Neusiedl.
As there are so many grape varieties to choose from, making a choice seems difficult. Therefore, we in the Salzl family carefully and thoroughly select the varieties that are best suited for the soil, the climate and the vineyard and vinify the wines according to their character. Accurate selection of the grapes and meticulous vineyard management are a matter of course for us in the Salzl family. The result is a varied range of top-quality wines for every palate.
BROWSE THROUGH OUR SHOP AND FIND THE RIGHT WINE TO SUIT YOUR TASTE.

... Winemaking means taking a closer look:

SALTY SOIL

The dried-out, saline soils near the small salt lakes are rich in nutrients and display spectacular cracks and fissures that look like a mosaic in the dry summer months.

GRAPE SEEDS

The “heart” of our grapes, their seeds, reveal the degree of ripeness and contain the valuable substances of resveratrol and viniferin that have an anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effect.

Botrytis Cinerea

Noble rot, which is indispensable for making sweet wines. This fungus perforates the grapes’ skin and makes the berries shrivel so that the flavors are concentrated. Botrytis requires particularly rare moist and warm weather conditions as can be found at Lake Neusiedl.

TARTAR

This mixture of low-solubility salts forms when wine or grape juice crystallizes. It creates beautiful patterns of various color shades in barrels or on large surfaces and is absolutely harmless.

Winemaking in the Salzl family is a passion,


lasting and limitless.

RESPECT ...

Growing wine in a region that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is situated in the middle of a national park is a great fortune for us in the Salzl family, but also means bearing great responsibility.

The special microclimate of the region, with Lake Neusiedl as a climate regulator that stores heat, and primarily the many small salt lakes next to the lake give the wines fresh mineral notes and herbal spiciness. The salty and moist air, the limy soils of sand, black earth and gravel, and the bright sunshine are essential and valuable natural ingredients for our well-balanced, fruity and dense wines.

All this belongs to the rare terroir that can hardly be found in this form anywhere else in the world and that makes the region around Lake Neusiedl very special.
When selecting the vineyards and grape varieties, we try to find the ideal match for a grape variety to suit the soil. Vineyards in the best locations enable our family to make great wines reflecting the character and typical features of the region
For us, being at home here not only means living here, but being deeply grateful for this privilege and using all our powers to preserve the values of the region. The logical consequences are: environmentally friendly work in the vineyard, our own photovoltaic system and efforts to work carbon-neutrally as far as possible – this is how we commit to the next generation.

For the Salzl family,
the love of our origins means respect,

lasting and limitless.

soils

Different vines require different soil structures. Here at Lake Neusiedl, the soils primarily consist of sand, such as in our Domkapitel vineyard, where the sand was washed up in dune-like formations, or permeable gravel, which is the predominant soil in our Lüss vineyard, or the weathered, dark black soil typical of steppe regions, which is rich in nutrients and can be found at the former shores of the Pannonian Sea.

Sand

Washed up from Lake Neusiedl in dune-like formations, can mostly be found directly next to the lake, along the reeds, such as in our Domkapitel vineyard, fine-grained, clayey alluvial sand, very limy, salty, rich in quartz, gray in color.

gravel

Deposited by the ancient River Danube in fan-like formations, mostly in combination with clayey, limy sand, surrounded by quartz, ferrous and therefore typically red-brown in color, predominant in the Lüss vineyard.

black earth

Formed at the shores of the former Pannonian Sea and as a consequence of the deposit of various sediments, consists of sandy-silty clay, partly clayey, dark gray to black in color, contains salt, can be found in the Martenhof vineyard.

saline soil

Around the small salt lakes, not suited for winemaking, but has a lot of influence on the minerality of the wines, as the salt is dispersed by the wind.

Love of nature,


lasting and limitless.

Tradition...

the winemaking tradition in our family has deep roots. We have been growing wine since 1840. For decades, winemaking has just been one of several agricultural activities our family engaged in, until Heribert Salzl, the father of Josef and the grandfather of Christoph, refocused the family business and was among the very few farmers who relied purely on wine. While he was producing mainly white and sweet wines, he was awarded several gold medals, causing a sensation.

In the 1980ies, Josef’s focus began to shift towards red wines, and he thereby laid the cornerstone of our success today. With the 2000 vintage, the first year that he produced red wine, Josef Salzl made it into the 50 best red wines of Austria.
His son Christoph has been working full-time in the family winery since 2005. He made his debut with the wine SACRIS (from SAlzl ChRIStoph). SACRIS is a pure Zweigelt and to this day is still at the top of the quality pyramid at the Salzl winery. It is an impressive example of what great wines can be made from this Austrian variety.
Regular exchange, reflection and communication are important elements for successful and honest cooperation.

Our family is supported by our long-standing team of employees who do an excellent job in the vineyards, cellar and in sales. Each and every one of them stands behind the philosophy of our winery. We are all like a big family whose members can trust each other, act responsibly, rely on each other and work together day after day.

In the Salzl family, teamwork is a tradition,

lasting and limitless.