Die Schwertführerinnen

Five hectares under the sisters hands

In the cellar, Kerstin Schwertführer works as winemaker at Die Schwertführerinnen in Sooß, drawing the Thermenregion into the press, the tank, and the bottle. She studied at Weinbauschule in Krems before she and her sister began their own chapter in the family wine village. Kerstin has put the starting point plainly: “In 2014, we brought our first wines into the cellar.” The date matters here because the estate is young in its name and older in its habits, set at Hauptstraße 35, where family wine work has long been part of the address. The label belongs to the sisters’ decision to make their own wines, under a name that carries a female hand into a region whose varieties ask for patience rather than force. Kerstin remains at the station, shaping the wines year after year, with recognition including Salon-Sieger in 2023. The estate is small enough for the maker to stay close to each decision. Its scale is 5 hectares, managed by the two sisters across Sooß and Baden.

Rotgipfler, Zierfandler, and the local white line

The program at Die Schwertführerinnen begins with estate fruit. The house does not buy from outside growers, so vineyard work and cellar work answer to the same hands. In Sooß, limestone and clay give the local varieties their frame; Baden adds another Thermenregion register, with its own variations of soil and exposure. The focus sits with Rotgipfler and Zierfandler, the white grapes that make this region speak in a dialect of spice, texture, and lift. Gelber Muskateller, Pinot Blanc, and Grauburgunder also sit in the range, alongside sparkling wine and still reds, but the discipline is clearest in the local whites. Rotgipfler Ried Saxerl gives the cellar a named vineyard expression; Rosé Rosa Wolke shows the estate’s lighter hand. Kerstin’s phrase, “The wine world is simply more exciting with women,” lands here as practice rather than posture, in a winery where the family line is not repeated unchanged but cut to a new shape.

The main street cellar and the heuriger

The house sits on the main street of Sooß, a village where wine is not separated cleanly from the table. Die Schwertführerinnen is both winery and heuriger, with tastings, regional snacks, indoor seats, and a terrace in the Thermenregion manner. The mood is conversational, closer to a family room than a polished tasting salon. Glasses move between the cellar’s work and the tavern’s slower rhythm; bottles are opened beside plates of simple local food. The place asks for attention without ceremony. In that setting, the technical choices stay visible enough: estate fruit, local varieties, small scale, a cellar founded in 2014 and held close by Kerstin Schwertführer.