Markowitsch

The Markowtisch Estate is based in Austria’s eastern region of Carnuntum and produces a range of high quality single varietals and blends, including the iconic M1.

Their winemaking ethos is based on four key pillars:

PATIENCE

Nothing happens overnight. At least not with things from which one expects consistency, maturity and stability. For this reason, the team allow their wines (and themselves) the time to mature.

BALANCE

During its genesis, many factors exert their forces upon a wine: climatic conditions, the composition of the soils, and also the signature of the grower as well. The challenge is to bring all this into harmonious interplay, year after year.

CHARACTER

No producer can determine the character of the wines, but they can reinforce it and seek to accentuate their distinctive and essential characteristics. It would be thoughtless to do otherwise.

TECHNOLOGY

Yes, and only the best, designed to support the vinification without leaving its mark upon it. The technology provides efficiency, security, good hygiene, and the harmony between the individual operations. Gerhard, himself, provides the elegance!

In the winery, the wines spend their first weeks – from the time of pressing until fermentation is finished – largely at ground level and mostly in cool stainless steel. This enables the team to keep a keen eye on the microbiological process of fermentation, and adjust things gently if necessary. After this, they bring the wines to the subterranean cask cellar, where they spend between one and three years at rest, and can mature at a consistent temperature.

Vineyards

The vineyards are situated in the eastern region of Carnuntum, an area impossible to pigeonhole. Among the wine regions that make up Niederösterreich, it enjoys a special position because of both the arid climate, but also the cooling influence of the nearby Danube River. The location provides one significant difference between this region and nearby Burgenland; the so-called ‘Brucker Gap’, an open passageway between the Leitha Range and the Carpathian Mountains. This allows constant air flow through this gateway headed toward the Danube River Valley, drying out the region’s modest rainfall whilst pushing away the Atlantic rains coming out of the west. Carnuntum really is a special and unique appellation.

“The one thing that makes my occupation so special and so rewarding is the daily immersion in nature. Deadlines and a fevered pace lose their impact as I make my way through the rows of grapevines. The slow but steady development of the plants – from bud-break to the fully ripened clusters – this brings a sense of composure and harmony to one’s life…what a privilege it is, to be a winegrower!”
Gerhard Markowitsch

For many years, the winemakers of Carnuntum focussed their efforts upon producing cuvées, marrying wines from various soils and different grape varieties into complex works of viticultural art. But currently there is a new process underway in the region, reconsidering how to articulate the distinctive characters of the individual sites. The new collaborative and future-oriented approach aims to give Carnuntum that vital, clear profile in the eyes of the wine drinking world. The wines are separated into single vineyards wines, village wines and region wines based on five different DAC grape varieties: Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch, Chardonnay, Weißburgunder and Grüner Veltliner.