Since its inception in 2007, Gut Oggau has emerged in the world of natural wine as a singular and recognizable brand, built on a proud tradition of biodynamic farming.
Located in the small town of Oggau, in Austria’s Burgenland region, founders Eduard and Stephanie Tcheppe began their joint-journey as vignerons by restoring a 17th century winery that had been abandoned for decades. The property included vines that were decades old — a fortunate find as it allowed them to begin working immediately on the vines. Today, they are fully Demeter certified.
From the start, the couple saw their wines as having their own hyper-distinct personalities, which led to forward-thinking and visually-striking wine labeling. Every bottle Gut Oggau produces looks eye-catching on the shelves of wine shops. That’s because each one displays a craft label centered around the personality inside each bottle. In this way, they have created a family of wines — each one given a fictional family member name and a label with an artistic rendering of their face.
For me, “Eugenie” is a standout.
I first sampled “Eugenie” during a trip to Vienna. Eduard and Stephanie make most of their wines with v. vinifera grapes, but “Eugenie” is special because it’s made entirely of PIWI grape varieties that the couple planted back in 2018.
“Her home is the future, her ancient soul honest, her wisdom astral and inspiring,” the marketing around “Eugenie” reads. “Together with Eugenie we are prepared to face the challenges, knowing that harmony and balance can only be achieved step by step. And every sip is a step towards confidence.”
Only 414 bottles were created of Gut Oggau’s first vintage of “Eugenie,” making it a particularly special wine to sample if given the opportunity. More than anything, though, my initial sips of the wine got me thinking about Gut Oggau’s ambitions with PIWI as they look to the future of wine.
Those plans are noteworthy, and in keeping with a few of their peers — including Franz Strohmeier, Ploder Rosenberg, and Thomas Niedermayr — in Europe.
I was lucky to have an opportunity on Wednesday, April 17, to chat via phone with Eduard:
What were some of the conversations you had around first deciding to plant PIWI vines in 2018?
We first planted vines ourselves back in 2018. Before that, the first vintage was in 2007, but it was because we’d taken over a winery that was quite old. We wanted to work with grown-up vines, which back then would have been between 30 and 60 years old.
It took us quite awhile to plant a vineyard ourselves, and this was on purpose. We had to get a feel for the vineyard, and a feel for what the future might hold. For us, turning to PIWIs was a no brainer for several reasons. We’ve worked biodynamically from the start, and as you know v. vinifera is less tolerant to fungi and diseases. Here in our vineyard it’s quite dry and warm, but we have humidity that comes up from a nearby lake and the morning dew. It creates perfect conditions for mildew. PIWIs are more resilient grape varietals.
We decided to go for very dense planting — 1 meter by 1 meter — so we can only work the vines by hand and with horses. That creates less pressure on the soil, and more vitality in the soil. With such dense planting we wouldn’t go into a regular spraying system here.
So PIWIs were obvious for us. And we always had the feeling those grapes could very well showcase the sense of place — the terroir.
And I imagine it wasn’t all straightforward, at least not at first.
It was, of course, an adventure. We only planted hybrids that had not been planted anywhere else in the world, all based on the work of an older guy at a nursery near here. Everything we planted is based on Austrian grapes. Nobody outside the nursery has planted those grape varietals before. We wanted to focus on a traditional, regional approach.
That goes hand-in-hand with our desire to create a safe haven for these vines, with lots of biodiversity in the vineyards, breaking the monocultural system. So we planted trees, and invited birds into our operation. It is supposed to be a self-sustaining system, and PIWIs are a critical part of our strategy.
How many hectares have you dedicated to PIWI varieties?
Not many, because we have those dense plantings. But it’s about two hectares, roughly. So around 13,000 to 14,000 vines. We will continue planting more in coming years.
And remind me, but your first vintage of “Eugenie” was about 400 bottles, yes?
“Eugenie” was 414 bottles. We would have had a bigger crop in 2022, in theory, but it was so hot and we wanted to deliver some stress relief to the vines. So we did a lot of clearing to help alleviate their stress.
We actually start bottling our 2023 vintage tomorrow, and it’s a little more than 1,000 liters, and there will be more to come in 2024.
Will you be planting anymore v. vinifera vines?
In the future we will be planting only 100% PIWIs. We are betting on PIWIs.
What are the varieties?
The parent genetics are all based on tradition Austrian grapes, but we’re growing grüner veltliner stella, grüner veltliner luna, grüner veltliner solis, welschriesling stella, welschriesling luna, blaufränkisch luna, blaufränkisch stella, and rösler.
I think it’s important here to say that what it turns out to be in the end is wine. It tastes like wine, and the grapes taste like grapes, and that’ve very positive for us. We don’t make a difference just because they are PIWI grapes. We treat them as we do all the other grapes.
How is it managing these vines compared to your v. vinifera varieties? Often I hear they require less attention because they’re so resistant to problems.
For us, it’s not about giving them less attention because we care a lot for our vineyards. We also feel that with the climate breakdown we need to support them. That’s our responsibility as stewards of the land.
We do treat them, but with herbal extracts, compost extracts, and natural approaches. Only occasionally do we have to treat them with a little bit of sulfite. Like last year around the flowering period — because of the mildew threat — we did two treatments.
It’s not 100% resistance, it’s higher tolerance. And we are careful, because we don’t want to weaken the plants. Certainly the effort to protect these plants is so much less than with v. vinifera, but to strengthen the plants you can’t put in enough effort, with PIWIs or v. vinifera.
Have you encountered any resistance or questioning from your peers around the decision to work with PIWI grapes?
I think people in Austria are more and more interested in the idea that PIWIs may be the future, in part because of the extreme weather conditions we have. But there is still reluctance in the market. A lot of people still go for single-grape variety vines, they are nervous about jumping into the cold water. I’d say growers are interested but not 100% ready to follow because of market reasons. For us, we always wanted our wines to have the ability to express themselves without putting them into a box of single-grape variety wines.
I would say that the discussion for hybrids, or PIWIs, is much further advanced in the states than in Europe. Tradition isn’t as much of a burden in the states, and the hybrids have been more native to the states. From growers there, I totally get the question of ‘Why would someone import v. vinifera into a place where they aren’t native.’ Europeans would consider v. vinifera a very traditional part of our culture and history, so it’s a little more complex.
I first tried “Eugenie” at Die Rundbar in Vienna. It was maybe the first Austrian PIWI wine I ever tasted. What do you think this wine is trying to convey?
I mean, in the end, she’s a very wise personality. For us, Eugenie is pointing the way into the future without neglecting the past. She has an ancient soul in her but she’s also willing to break loose from convention.
That’s what our vineyards are. We are creating space for these kinds of wines to show how viticulture can be made fit for the future. Eugenie is the role model for this. We love them all the same but she kind of…there’s this beautiful saying that you can only understand life by looking back but you can only live it by looking forward. That’s her mantra.
Do you have another PIWI wine in the works for the market?
Well, remember that before Eugenie there was Josephine, and she’s mostly based on PIWIs. But to answer your questions there are no new family members planned for the immediate future. There will be more Eugenie to come. We’ll take the future as it comes. Our approach is never to think of the finished wine in the bottle. For us it’s all about the process. The quality of the process defines the quality of the product.
Are there any other PIWI wine producers in Europe that you keep an eye on?
What a difficult question. Everything is so new and fresh at the moment, so it’s hard to come across many wines. Recently we had a nice discussion with Didier Grappe in the Jura. He will certainly move many people into opening their minds since Jura is a big topic all over the world. It brings him into the limelight in that sense. 🍇
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.