Hafner

Our winery is located in the quaint-town of Moenchhof, Austria’s oldest wine growing community (since 1217) east of Lake Neusiedl in sunny Burgenland. Burgenland is today’s 9th province of Austria but until 1921 it was still a part of Hungary. Characterised by its unique “pannonian” lowlands and Europe’s largest step-lake (grassland lake) it is famous for its microclimate and the world-famous wines! With 300 sunny days per year the region was discovered to be perfect for winegrowing, even 3000 years ago. Started by the Celts and extended by the Romans, the monks of Heiligenkreuz perfected the winegrowing in this area and as such founded the wine growing community of Moenchhof as the first in Austria making its living just out of wine. The Hafner family was one of the first within this community and as such, part of the oldest wine producers. Moreover it should be mentioned, that world famous “Ausbruch” wine was first mentioned in 1617 in Moenchhof. Ausbruch is a noble sweet wine category between BA and TBA whose origins are being claimed by the winegrowing village of Rust. Rust may be famous for this type of wine now, but it was originally created in Moenchhof.

We have traced our family tree back to the 16th century, which proves our tradition in winemaking. The family owned Hafner winery was set up in the early 19th century.

But by all this tradition the breakthrough for our family estate was started in the early 70’s. In 1971 Julius Hafner II produced the first Austrian Ice wine on a larger scale and created a portfolio of different BA and TBA wines of the highest quality standard with a long shelf-life. E.g. our 1973 BA and TBA wines received the highest awards in the 1999 Vinum sweet wine cup, as 25-year-old wines!

Another innovation was the production of kosher wine in 1980. Since 1995 all our vineyards are cultivated to the rules of “controlled and integrated Viniculture/Production” (KIP). The target of this state controlled and supported viniculture is the maintenance of health for environment, plants and human beings by using no pesticides and growing the vines “near to nature” by maintaining the ground balance reserves and using the natural and positive insects in the soil. All out products are subject to the KIP rules and in terms of kosher wines become even stricter by not adding anything to the wine. In keeping with the strictest “wine law” in the world which is the Austrian, the House of Hafner line also has no critical substances added to the wine and in terms of Kosher, even the common use of galantine for clearing the wine is strictly prohibited.