Koppitsch, Pretty Nats

Koppitsch, Pretty Nats

Type	Pet Nat/Fizzy Bubbly
Country	Austria
Region	Burgenland
Varietal	Blaufränkisch, Syrah
Vintage	2021
ABV	11%
Size	750ml
Colour	Pomegranate Red
Taste	Fun a s f**k. Fruit explosion! Strawberry, raspberry, pomegranate. Saw this described before as tasting like fizzy jellies and I absolutely love that!
Food Pairing

 

Alexander and Maria Koppitsch began making wine in Burgenland in 2011. They took over their parents 5.5 hectare winery and moved from selling their grapes into making their own wine. The vineyards are in the Neusiedl am See, a small village situated at the shores of the Neusidl Lake and a the eastern end of the Leitha Mountains which feature soft, rolling hills of mostly limestone soil.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Alex does not believe in introducing any additives into the grapes or the wine. They use Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic principles to cultivate their grapes, and pride themselves on performing every aspect of the vineyard management and the winemaking by hand, on a very small scale.

They make two distinct lines of wine, the Authentisch wines, which are more forthright and easy to drink, and receive a light filtering and a small addition of sulfur, as well as the more complex wines in the Unfiltered line, which take longer to ferment and have zero addition of sulfur.

 

 

The whole bunches were pressed directly, and fermented naturally with no additives or temperature control.

At the right point during fermentation this wild juice gets bottled by hand – serious family job, everybody is helping (mum, dad, brother, the boys, Maria and Alex).

Then the bottles are stored in the machine hall and rest until spring. During the first warm days of spring, when the nights are still freezing, the Koppitsch family puts the bottles into the backyard for cooling. After a few days the bottles are cold enough and ready for the final workflow – disgorging.

They open every single bottle by hand - Alex is the man - fill it up and seal it again.

Nested on the shallow slops of Burgenland next to the beautiful Neusiedl lake are the vineyards of Maria and Alex Koppitsch. Since 2011 they are preserving the natural wine making traditions that have been in their family for over 500 years now. 

Taking on the holistic approach – they make sure, that all the work at the vineyard is done with respect and immense amount of care. At the core of their ethics are biodynamic principles and persistent manual labour.

The soil on which the grapes are grown are sand, clay, loam and gravel – and as such, it reflects in how diverse the wines are.