Instead of a sterile tasting room they run a seasonal heuriger, a uniquely Austrian tradition that is sorta a cross between a wine bar and a roadside tavern. They grace the list of many top restaurants such as Quince in SF and Noma in Copenhagen.All this acclaim would easily go to the head of most artisans, but Eduard and Stephanie have remained approachable and generous. The faces on the bottles peek out from the shelves of some of the world's buzzy-est wine bars and bottle shops from Paris to Tokyo. Aged in old oak barrels, all of their wines, even their whites, are bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without the addition of sulfur.This combination of thought provoking, delicious wines and incredibly charming branding have garnered the winery Cult status. The “older generation” cuvées are pressed with a restored 200-year-old screw press. In the cellar, grapes undergo spontaneous fermentation with their native yeast. The entire estate is certified biodynamic. Although their branding is contemporary, Gut Oggau’s vinification methods are as traditional as it gets. Each bottle is adorned with a portrait of its character drawn by the German artist Jung von Matt. Whether it’s the “bright and cheerful” Theodora, the “young and attractive” Athanasius or the “easy going and voluptuous” Josephine, each character represents the personality of that wine. There is the mature and refined older generation, the strong and robust middle generation and the tempestuous and energetic youngest generation. These fictional personas belong to three generations of the same family. Eduard and Stephanie then created a different character for each cuvée. Gut Oggau blends varieties from the same plot in order to most clearly translate the character of each site. After years of toil Eduard and Stephanie released their first vintage in 2007.Early on the decision was made to not focus on variety. They restored the winery and vineyards using regenerative agriculture and biodynamic principles. The winery had been abandoned for 20 allowing the land ample time to heal from any chemical farming that may have occurred. Eduard Tscheppe, the son of conventional wine producers in Austria’s Tyrol region, and his wife Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck, the daughter of Michelin-starred restaurateurs, bought an abandoned winery that boasted old vines, some more than 60 years old. Their journey into the natural side of wine is not unfamiliar but it is worth repeating. Their distinctly labeled bottles are well known to wine aficionados of all stripes, as well as anyone who’s ever looked at Instagram. Each bottle featuring a portrait of a fictional family member, communicating the differences in terroir through the portraits on the labels.Gut Oggau is amongst the most celebrated names in the world of natural wine. They were astonished at how much character came through the barrels, even in their first vintage each wine seemed so alive, beaming with its own personality - and so the Gut Oggau family was born. Right from the start, their approach was to work alongside nature and treat the soil and the vines gently and sustainably. What was important to Stephanie and Eduard was that they didn't change the vineyard but instead discovered its natural potential. It was the old 17th-century winery and surrounding vineyards that found Stephanie and Eduard back in 2007, and the rest is history!įortunately, there had been a year-long gap between owners, so the soils had the chance to be washed clean of the chemicals previously used. “It was love at first sight I could have asked her to marry me immediately,” says Eduard “we knew that we wanted to do something together, but we didn’t have a master plan becoming wine growers was fate”. Gut Oggau is ran by Stephanie and Eduard Tescheppe-Eselbock. Made from grapes from a recently acquired plot that is in transition to the biodynamic standards of Gut Oggau, hence the masked wine! Vinification: Fermented and aged in steel and wooden vats.īright aromatic and full of fresh black fruits. Viticulture: Biodynamic Farming / Natural Wine
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