Georg Lingenfelder

We met Georg in the Berlin wine bar Konträr when he was presenting his first vintage 2020. Georg is charismatic, thoughtful and uncomplicated, we Austrians would say: "he has a good charm!". And it is precisely this charm that the mid-twenties-year-old also conjures up in his natural wines.

Georg Lingenfelder belongs to a winegrowing family that has been farming for 500 years and, by Palatinate standards, pursued an ecologically sustainable winegrowing philosophy very early on - a legacy that Georg is now respectfully developing further in the 14th generation, and in doing so, he is going completely his own way. 

On around 13 hectares, only regional grape varieties such as Riesling, Silvaner, Pinot Noir and Morio Muskat (=natural cross between Riesling and Silvaner) are cultivated - grape varieties that have their origin or a longer tradition in the Palatinate. Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay are deliberately not planted in order to preserve the originality of the region. The plots in Georg's vineyards around Freinsheim and Großkarlsbach consist of tertiary limestone and loess and sandy soils with clay intercalations. With plenty of time, natural wines with subtle aromas are created here that always show where they come from.

Georg sees his task as a winemaker in carefully working out his own style, because nature already provides everything; as a human being, you simply intervene in a supportive way. In addition to careful manual work in the vineyard, he tries to bring his wines to the bottle as puristically as possible, but allows himself to turn a few screws that reflect his own signature of winemaking.

In the cellar, fermentation takes place in used Palatinate barrique, which comes from the neighbouring forest - after remaining on the full lees for about 12 months, the wines are racked off together with the dirt and lard (i.e. no separation of the lees) and bottled unfiltered, with a small pinch of sulphur serving as stabilisation. The results are fresh, textured natural wines with a hint of exoticism and immense juiciness that clearly reflect the special microclimate around Großkarlsbach in the Northern Palatinate - that is incredibly fun to drink.