Over the Christmas holidays, we returned to our distillery for a few days. We grant our employees and us this creative break every year to recharge our batteries. In the basement house, where our high-quality distillates wait for our guests and mature Mostello barrels at constant temperature to completion, everything seems to stand still during this time. Seemingly! For our Mostello this period of rest is very, very important, because in this “apparent” silence develops a wonderful organic aperitif.
Mostello is an innovative pear dessert wine composition and invention of our house. We refine our own pear must and pear brandy from our region according to the port wine method. While fortified wines ripen in warehouses all over the world in very warm to hot areas, our Mostello is exposed to the cool, spicy air of the Alpine foothills for at least a year in stacked barrique barrels. Only then will it be stored in our basement at a constant 19.4 degrees Celsius to perfection.
Alpine Aging
Our Mostello is stored outdoors for at least one year. In icy cold temperatures below -10 degrees in winter to +35 degrees on hot summer days, he enjoys the wonderful Mostviertel Voralpenluft. The fresh air of the Mostviertel and the constant changes in temperature, air pressure and humidity characterize the Mostello daily. The differences in temperature during the day and night and during the different seasons improve the quality of the acidity, and the taste of the pear dessert wine becomes rounder and softer with each passing day. The larger these temperature differences, the better the acid binds in and the rounder and milder the Mostello ultimately presents on the palate.
After our experience in Öhling showed that the partially extreme weather conditions have a more positive effect on the maturation of the mustellos, together with Hermann Haller we ventured a new experiment. We sent barrel # 40 up high! Hermann Haller, a longtime fan of our organic apero, one day gave birth to the idea and suggested to place a cask of barrel oil at an altitude of over 1,900 m directly at the summit restaurant Gipfelstuba am Walmendingerhorn in the Kleinwalsertal. Cask No. 40 has been stored there since May 2016 and is exposed to even more extreme weather than in Öhling. More intense sun, more extreme cold, icy winds and of course even more snow. The Mostello makes every single change in the weather in the mountains. That makes our Mostello even more fun!
Last September, Josef made a first rehearsal in a small group and our expectations were exceeded. The ripening on the summit of the Walmendingerhorn has a very positive effect and makes the Mostello even rounder, creamier and smoother than at home in Öhling. To the delight of the producer, the evaporation of 7% in Öhling is reduced to about 3.5% on the mountain. Barrel no. 40 continues to be stored on top of the mountain, where there are currently almost three meters of snow. Until our next visit to the Kleinwalsertal, the Mostello will become more mature there every day. Every day we get more curious about how barrel no. 40 presents itself on our next visit to the mountains.
