Weingut F. X. Pichler
Lucas Pichler is the seventh generation of his family to head this estate, which was named F.X. Pichler in 1971 when his father, Franz Xaver Pichler, took over. Lucas Pichler joined his parental estate in 1998, after finishing viticultural college in Krems and training with Müller-Catoir in the Pfalz and Manfred Tement in Styria. He worked alongside his father until 2000, when he became sole cellarmaster. He began farming organically in 2016; the conversion to organic certification started in 2020 and the estate has been certified organic since 2023. Pichler farms 18.5 hectares and buys fruit from another 1.5 hectares, also certified organic. The varietal split is 60% Grüner Veltliner and 40% Riesling, with just a little Gelber Muskateller in two parcels in the Loibenberg—which is now mainly made into grape juice and marketed to top restaurants. Until 2019, there was also Sauvignon Blanc, but that’s now discontinued. All Grüner Veltliner is destemmed and fermented in stainless steel. The village wines stay in stainless steel, while the single-site wines are aged on fine lees in large used barrel for six to eight months. Riesling is mostly whole-bunch-pressed after slight crushing and followed by three to six hours of skin contact, depending on site and vintage. No sulfur dioxide is added before fermentation, and botrytis is absolutely avoided. The only wine, both fermented and aged in wood, is the Grüner Veltliner Unendlichbut. Pichler provides a useful shorthand: all screw-capped wines are made in stainless steel only, and the wines that saw wood have cork closures. The “Monumental” or “M” wines are no longer produced, as they were, according to Pichler, “no longer in keeping with the style” –which is crystalline, linear, taut, and focused on translucency, drive, and elegance. The Unendlich wines are only made in the ripest years. Pichler looks for site expression and the maximum of varietal expression in a dry wine. Pichler notes that rain in the early stages of the 2022 harvest, which started in mid-September, was “challenging.” Sorting was crucial and resulted in about 15% loss of fruit compared to the long-term average. During my visit, I tasted the 2022 Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners, plus the 2021 vintages of each variety’s Unendlich bottling. No Unendlich was made in 2022.
From 2022 Wachau and Lower Austria: An Overshadowed Vintage Worth Exploring (Feb 2024) by Anne Krebiehl MW
2022 Grüner Veltliner Dürnsteiner
Color: White
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2022 Grüner Veltliner Kellerberg
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2022 Grüner Veltliner Klostersatz
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2022 Grüner Veltliner Loibenberg
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2022 Grüner Veltliner Loibner
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2022 Grüner Veltliner Steinertal
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2021 Grüner Veltliner Unendlich
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2022 Riesling Burgstall
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2022 Riesling Kellerberg
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2022 Riesling Klostersatz
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2022 Riesling Loibenberg
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2022 Riesling Steinertal
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2021 Riesling Unendlich
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