Why it matters
The producer
Heidi Schröck took over the family winery in 1983, bringing her own work to a winegrowing lineage that reaches back three centuries. The estate remains based at Rathausplatz 8 in Rust, where Heidi, Georg and Johannes work with hand-tended vineyards and an old cellar. That family scale keeps the connection between a named site, a grape and a bottle close: Weissburgunder can be read through Rust rather than through a broad regional blend of claims.
The present estate began its current chapter when Heidi took over in 1983. Rust had already been home to generations of family winegrowers, but Heidi’s work turned that inheritance into a working winery with dry whites, named vineyard material and a continuing interest in Ruster Ausbruch. Her sons Georg and Johannes are now part of the team, so the family line is not treated as distant history: it runs from the 1955 Kulm planting through to wines made from the estate’s 10 hectares.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Rust sits in Burgenland, roughly five miles from the Hungarian border, on the edge of Lake Neusiedl. The family’s vineyards form a south-facing amphitheatre around the town. Exposure to the south and the lake-side setting place the vines in a warm, open landscape; on a Weissburgunder label, Rust is the setting behind ripe quince notes while the wine still carries enough structure for ageing.
Kulm is identified as the estate’s oldest site. Three of Heidi Schröck’s great-aunts planted it in 1955 on sand over clay, a combination that gives the vineyard a physical family history as well as a ground profile. The sandy upper layer and clay beneath it matter because vine roots meet two different textures in one site; Kulm is therefore more than a family name in the range, but a place where soil and planting date stay attached to the wine.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The family describes vineyard work as manual, a practical fit for a small estate with old family sites around Rust. In the cellar, the 2025 Weissburgunder was fermented in both large wood and stainless steel, then spent four months on fine lees. Using two vessels keeps the wine from reading as only woody or only steel-bright, while lees contact supports a broader texture. The result is a dry white whose fruit and spice can sit on a palate with weight rather than disappearing after the first citrus-like lift.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range has two useful poles. Weissburgunder is the central dry-white thread, with vintages showing how one grape can shift across years without losing its place in Rust. The 2022 is associated with shell and quince, while the 2024 moves toward fennel, anise and ginger; both descriptions point to a white with savoury and spice notes alongside fruit rather than simple floral perfume.
Ruster Ausbruch forms the other pole. This is Rust’s historic sweet-wine tradition, and Heidi Schröck has long worked to revive it after its disappearance following phylloxera. Dry Weissburgunder and sweet Ausbruch therefore show two different uses of the same town: one follows dry acidity, texture and spice; the other follows the local sweet-wine history.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Weissburgunder 2025. It is a dry Weissburgunder made with fermentation split between large wood and stainless steel, followed by four months on fine lees. That method provides a concrete way into the wine: expect fruit and freshness from the stainless-steel portion, more texture from the lees, and a measured wood influence rather than an oak-heavy style. It also opens the door to the estate’s other Weissburgunder vintages, where shell, quince, fennel, anise and ginger show how the grape changes from year to year in Rust.