Weninger

Alongside Blaufränkisch, Franz Weninger has a great pioneering spirit running through his veins. In conversation, you can really sense that he is driven to try things out, to question things, to find his own truths. Everything to find the special, the true or even the new.

Together with his wife Petra Gratz-Weninger, Franz Weninger has made it to the top of Austrian red wines with a focus on the Blaufränkisch grape variety. The Natural wines Weninger's wines are puristic and unadulterated, delicate, juicy and always complex and structured.

His father Franz Sr. already stood for innovation with the winery, not least through his decision to be the first winery in Central Burgenland to switch to "organic". Before Franz junior took over his parents' business in 2012, he was already responsible for the family-owned parcels on the Hungarian side in Balf near Sopron. A project that Franz Sr. entrusted to his son as a start.

Franz Weninger's wines are not loud dazzlers - they are quiet storytellers. This is particularly noticeable in his Blaufränkisch vineyards in central Burgenland. There is the "Hochäcker", for example, grown on barren limestone soil, which writes its cool precision into every glass. Or the "Saybritz" on slate, whose dark energy and fine saltiness gets under your skin.

For Weninger, Blaufränkisch is not just a grape variety, but a language - one that speaks of soil, climate and time. And this is precisely the strength of his wines from Burgenland: they do not taste of technology, but of origin. They are Austrian red wine in its most honest, clearest form - and at the same time much more than that.