Natural wines from Austria

The Austrian natural wine community emerged in Styria in the early 2000s and blossomed in the 2010s together with the natural wine fair Karakterre, organised by Croatian wine importer Marko Kovac, which is also financially supported by the Austrian state. Thanks to winemakers like Maria and Sepp Muster from Styria and Eduard Tscheppe and Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck from Gut Oggau in Burgenland, Austrian natural wine is now the rage in natural wine bars from Tokyo to Brooklyn.

In the meantime they have become the superstars of the Austrian natural wine scene and their wines can be found around the globe. The trend "Natural Wine" is booming, and next to France - the cradle of natural wines - Austria is clearly at the forefront. Connoisseurs increasingly want to buy Austrian natural wine. This is thanks to the visionary winemakers Christian Tschida, Sepp Muster, Fred Loimer, Werlitsch, Franz Strohmeier, Gut Oggau, Gernot Heinrich and many more. No wonder, then, that most of the wines from Austria are exported outside of Austria; they are particularly popular overseas and in Scandinavian countries.

In the 1980s, attempts were made to fake numerous regulations such as illicit additives or manipulations such as label fraud and blending with inferior wines - such incidents even date back to antiquity.

The history of the wine scandal began in the early 1970s when an attempt was made to prevent the migration of many small farmers. The winegrowers from the border region were promised a new planting of 0.5 hectares per farm to prevent them from entering the Viennese labour market - after only 5 years this led to an expansion of vineyards by around 15,000 hectares and thus to overproduction. The soils were filled with artificial fertiliser so that the vines could produce at maximum capacity. In 1970, Austria produced one third more wine than it actually consumed. Competition in wine sales was therefore fierce, as wine consumption declined throughout Europe in the 1980s - in Germany there was also a great demand for sweet wines at the time. In order to continue selling wine, attempts were made to fake high-quality Prädikat wines from simple table wines by adding diethylene glycol, and at cheap prices. 

Without going into figures in great detail, one can say: the extent was fatal, deception and falsification were rampant. With the first glycol discovery in 1985, the wine scandal was perfect - but it was also the birth of a counter-movement, because many winegrowers did not want to be lumped together with the "slippers". So they began to rigorously convert their farms to sustainable farming methods.

After numerous recriminations and calls for resignation in the Austrian government and wine industry, new rules of the game had to be developed - the strictest wine law in the world was created, so things are looking up again in terms of quality and sustainability. Above all, it was visionary winemakers such as Gernot Heinrich, Fred Loimer, Gerhard Pittnauer, Claus Preisinger, Otto Knaus, Manfred Tement and Franz Weninger, among others, who recognised very early on that new agricultural standards needed to be set in order to drive the transformation of sustainable viticulture.

In recent years, wine has been increasingly shaped or even designed. Attempts have been made to copy certain wines or tastes with various methods and aids from the food industry. Tschida, Gut Oggau, Werlitsch, Muster & Co swim against the tide, they all work according to strict biodynamic guidelines, rely on elaborate manual work in the vineyard and follow the "low-intervention" maxim in the cellar, and yet each has its own individual, incomparable signature. Because the vineyards are vital and robust due to this regenerative philosophy, we can skilfully dispense with all fining or filtration agents and large amounts of sulphur, because a good, healthy must finds its way by itself. Wine is made the way it used to be, the process is accompanied carefully and sustainably without manipulating it technologically.

One of the indirect and most wonderful responses to the wine scandal is the founding of the Styrian community of values "Schmecke das Leben" (Taste Life) with the winegrowers Tauss, Strohmeier, Werlitsch, Tscheppe and Muster. The natural wine pioneers consistently rely on ecological, regenerative viticulture with a focus on symbiosis between plants and their animals in the vineyard, because only healthy vines from living soils also produce authentic wines. They live from a lively exchange of their experiences, enrich their knowledge in dealing with nature and use synergies. 

In the cellar, the healthy grapes are matured gently and slowly, as this is the only way to obtain wines with wonderful ripeness and longevity. The winemakers rely on a longer maturation in wooden barrels on their own yeast, so that the character of the site, the soil aromas and the grape variety of the respective vintage can fully develop. Their natural wines tell stories, those of the terroir and of the people who make them. They are individual artefacts of their craftsmanship, and since there are always faces behind every wine, we consequently also consume more consciously.

While they were still laughed at by "conventional wine drinkers" in their early years, they are now considered internationally to be among the absolute top winemakers in the world. natural wine scene and stand for new perspectives in wine enjoyment.