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Claus Preisinger

Preisinger’s first vintage was in 2000. It is run by Claus Preisinger, whose family tended vines but did not run a wine estate. Preisinger graduated from Klosterneuburg and then worked as a cellar master for Hans & Anita Nittnaus in Gols. He started making his first wine in 2000, still alongside his day job. As of 2003, he went full-time at his own estate. Preisinger grubbed up his family’s vineyards on flat land and allowed them to lay fallow. Today, he focuses on hillside vineyards on either side of Lake Neusiedl: Weiden am See, Gols and Mönchhof on the east shore and Purbach and Breitenbrunn on the west shore. “I have always appreciated both [shores] for their respective attributes, he says.” Today, Preisinger farms 35 hectares biodynamically and was a founding member of the biodynamic Respekt group. His plantings are split into 50% Blaufränkisch, followed by Zweigelt, which he intends to reduce to a minimum, Pinot Noir, Furmint, Grüner Veltliner, and Sankt Laurent. He emphasizes that having 35 hectares makes him more relaxed, as he can trial risky vineyard management and winemaking methods that allow him to “walk that narrow path between kombucha and genial wine.” To him, experimental winemaking “is a calculated risk” where he “allows things to turn out the way they do, without intervening too much.” Preisinger works without additives or filtration; he notes that his only decision of a chemical nature is whether or not to give a minimal addition of sulfur dioxide to his wines. His wines are thus all labeled Wein aus Österreich rather than Burgenland. Climatically, Preisinger knows that he is pushing the boundaries with Pinot Noir in warm Burgenland, but he says he looks to Jura, where canopies are shaded and grapes are harvested early – since he is a Pinot Noir obsessive. “Perhaps it is my fate,” he says, “to look for the coolest aroma in the warmest area.”

From 2022 Burgenland and Austria’s East – A Heaven for Unsung but Compelling Reds (Feb 2024) by Anne Krebiehl MW

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2022 Kalkundkiesel

Color: White

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