Ruster Ausbruch is a rare, specialty sweet dessert wine which
hails from Austria. First, let's look at the name itself: Ruster
is pronounced "rooster", like the bird, and it simply means that
the wine comes from the town of Rust (pronounced roost), which
is in the Burgenland region of Austria. Ausbruch is pronounced
ahs-brook, and comes from the German word Ausbrechen, which
means to "break out." There are a number of dessert wines from
different countries called Ausbruch, and it refers to the method
used to select the grapes during harvest: grapes which have been
affected by botrytis cinerea (also known as noble rot) are
"broken out" of the bunch to be used, leaving the clean,
un-affected grapes behind. When you come across a sweet wine
labeled "Noble," it is this precious mold they are talking about.
The quality of these wines depends upon how meticulously this
selection process it is done. The simplest way involves taking
two buckets and making one pass at the vines, roughly separating
the merely ripe grapes from those affected by noble rot.
The more labor intensive way involves going through the vineyard
day after day, sometimes as much as a dozen times, and only
picking the most perfectly noble-rotted grapes with each pass
and leaving the rest on the vine until they, too, reach rotted
perfection. With this method, even the most experienced picker
will collect only about enough grapes to produce 20 liters of
wine with each pass. In fact, winemaker Michael Wenzel of the
Wenzel Winery tells of a year when it took a team of 7
harvesters working full-time for 10 days to pick enough grapes
for a mere 300 liters of this precious wine.
Production then goes something like this: maceration generally
takes between a half to 2 days, depending upon the quality of
the nobly rotted grapes. Next comes a gentle run through the
press. The must is then left to ferment until it reaches around
12% alcohol, which takes approximately four months. The wines
are then aged in wooden casks or oak barrels, the length of time
and type of barrel used depending upon the style of the vintner
Precious few Ruster Ausbruch wines are currently imported to the
United States, and they can be difficult to locate at your local
wine shop. Two outstanding producers to look for are the
Feiler-Artinger winery, which just celebrated its 100-year
anniversary, and the Wenzel winery, whose family have been
making wine in Rust since 1647. Both can be found online at the
Austrian specialty wine shop Winemonger, which offers at least 6
different varieties of Ruster Ausbruch dessert wine at last
count. Two other good resources for locating these wines are
wine-searcher.com and winezap.com. Last year, Wine Enthusiast
magazine named the 2001 Wenzel SAZ Ruster Ausbruch wine to it's
"Top 100 Wines in the World" list, a wine which vintner Michael
Wenzel describes this way: "This is the flagship of our Ruster
Ausbruch wines. "Saz" stands for the historically important lage
[vineyard area] on our property. The idea was to create a Ruster
Ausbruch from grapes that have been the traditional combination
used for hundreds of years: 60% Furmint, 40% In the glass it is
a beautiful sparkly yellow. The nose is immensely fruity, with
notes of apricot and citrus fruits. An explosion of fruits. On
the palate you are overwhelmed by the finesse of the acid that
carries the wine and builds the backbone for long cellaring
potential. The 2001 Saz was aged for 18 months in new wood
barrels."
What is the cellar potential for a Ruster Ausbruch? Vintner Kurt
Feiler, from the Feiler-Artinger winery, describes their passage
into maturity this way: "The Ruster Ausbruch has a cellaring
potential of up to 50, 60 years. It shows well in the first 2
years, then closes down in year 3 for about a year, and then
opens back up with fruit and more complexity on the palate; more
rounded and integrated. It will hold at this perfect taste for
another 15 years and then slows development as it moves into its
ripening period. The sweet impression of the sugar reduces
during this final period, developing a more crispy, slightly
drier finish. For our Ruster Ausbruch blends every grape is
picked single varietal, at different times, and then after
fermentation they are blended. This also helps us to control the
final feeling."
One might be tempted to serve such a sweet dessert wine
alongside the dessert course, but both Michael Wenzel and Kurt
Feiler recommend different route: pair these wines with
something savory, such as a blue-veined cheese or some prepared
foie gras. If you do elect to serve it with dessert, they would
recommend keeping it simple and not-too-sweet, such as a white
cake or ripe fruits. Or better yet, serve a glass of Ruster as
the entire dessert course. This is one dessert wine that can
certainly stand alone, and deserves to do so.
These rare and exquisite wines are a must for the dessert wine
connoisseur, and a knockout for the sweet wine novice.
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