Alexander and Maria Koppitsch

Salt of the Earth, Joy of the Lake

 

Location: Neusiedl-am-See, Burgenland, Austria

Owner & winemaker: Alex & Maria Koppitsch and their family

Vineyards: 6.3 hectares spread over four sites, estate-owned

Vineyard management: practicing organic & biodynamic

Soils: very diverse depending on the vineyard – sand, clay, gravel, loam, limestone, schist

Main varieties: Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay for the whites; St. Laurent, Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt, Syrah for the reds

Winemaking: spontaneous fermentation only, aging in old barrels of different sizes, no filtering, no fining, little to no SO2 added.

 

Fun facts:

• the historical roots of the family run back to 1523, when the first Koppitsch – a winemaker and mayor of the town of Neusiedl – was recorded in a city chronicle
• Maria comes from a family of strong, emancipated business women—one of her grandmothers ran a successful soft-drink business, while another managed an all-male carpentry shop
• The Koppitsch vineyards were never conventionally treated, and Alex took a further step into biodynamics when he and Maria took over in 2011
• The family still uses their grandfather’s old press, barrels and other equipment, in line with their belief that “If you take good care of your tools, you can use them forever”
• Sustainability is a really big topic for the Koppitsches: they try to lessen their impact on the environment as much as possible, from their own humble lifestyle to using natural cork closures, very light bottles, one-piece-labels or a simple recycled paper cardboard box without any tape or print.
• Other than respect for the environment, their wines should mainly convey joy – as Maria and the colorful labels say, “we want to make fun wines that bring you pleasure and happiness”

 

Jump to wines | Koppitsch Website

 

Bottles of Koppitsch are ones that capture your attention right away, with their vivid labels and the juicy, easy-drinking wine inside. Just like the area where they’re born, the popular vacation spot of Lake Neusiedl, these wines ooze the lazy holiday vibe of days spent sun-lounging and boat- or bike-riding. “We want to make wines that bring you this kind of easy feeling of joy,” Maria nods, “that you can open anytime and they’ll always put a smile on your face.”

Similar to many other growers in our book, the Koppitschs’ journey wasn’t always this joyful. The present-day winery started with a complex post-war story, as Alex’s grandfather Leopold went missing during WW2, becoming a prisoner of war. As a trained baker and agriculturalist, his Russian captivators put him to use as a teacher in Moscow. When he finally managed to return home in 1947, he found the estate of his meanwhile-deceased father divided up among his nine siblings who, having had no contact with him for years, had considered him dead. Luckily for him, his mother kept a small field for herself, which he then turned into a mixed farm including a winery. The farm would mainly sell eggs–you can still spot a rusty metal sign with the inscription Frischer Eier (”Fresh Eggs” in German) outside the tractor shed–with wine in dopplers (the local slang for 2-liter bottles) only as an up-sell item. 

The farm gradually added some vineyards here and there, building them up to their current 6.3 hectares, but kept things running in the same way, using the same old equipment and labor-intensive techniques. When young Alex, influenced by his conventional training in the nearby Eisenstadt wine school, wanted to try these modern methods in the family winery some twenty years ago, he was met with an impermeable “no” from his father. A hard thing to swallow for an ambitious youngster, but “I am now beyond grateful for the fact that the winery never went through a technological phase or used chemicals in the vineyards. The historical yeast population and all the old “rubbish” remained in the winery and we still use my grandfather’s tools for making wine, and will do so as long as they last,” Alex explains.

The young couple took the helm in 2011, when Alex felt it was time to start his own thing after spending five years as a winemaking and biodynamics assistant for Gerhard Pittnauer, another star winemaker in the area. Seeing that innovations and thinking outside the box pay off, Alex and Maria took the leap of faith, only to be met with… a steep decline of the family’s financial situation. With little kids to care for and similarly little income from their wines, which were quite different from what people would expect of Burgenland back then, Maria recalls how at one point they didn’t even have ten euros to fuel up their car. “But that’s OK—if things are too easy, they don’t really make you grow as a person. Everything Koppitsch is now stems from all these hardships. It also made us grow a lot as a couple; going and talking through all this together truly strengthened our bond,” Maria explained in an interview, with her typical humble acceptance of the things that life throws your way.

A bond it definitely is: these two strike you as the harmonious, “together-for-ages” couple, although they actually met when both were around their thirties in a local bar where “I think half the marriages in Neusiedl started,” Maria chuckles. And a rather rocket start it was: three months later she was pregnant, and their first son Jakob was born a day after the 1st anniversary of their bar encounter. To make things even more frenetic, all of this happened right around the same time they were taking over the winery. “I wouldn’t recommend this as a dating strategy to everybody,” Maria roars with laughter, “but luckily it worked for us.”

Besides their mutual respect and the will to fight through tough times together, the thing that tipped their fate, as the tale often goes, was a lucky encounter with the right person. In their case, it happened at the 2017 Weinsalon Naturel in Cologne, “one of the last fairs we decided to go to before I’d return to my accountant job in order to sustain the family,” Maria recalls how close they actually came to quitting the family winery idea altogether. Luckily for us natural wine lovers, David Ward of Ward&Associés, our Montreal colleagues, tasted their wines there, leading us to discover the couple soon thereafter. “I’m forever grateful for this trust that was put into us back then, as it became an inspiration for other markets that came to work with us afterwards. We could make all the wine we wanted, but really, there’s no way we could be living this dream without the people who buy and represent it,” she says solemnly. 

To give credit where it’s due, the Koppitsches have worked very hard for this dream, and their wines have gotten better and better each year we’ve worked with them. Alex went through a phase of vinifying all of their plots and varietals separately, which, besides having their tiny cellar crammed with 24 different wines at one point, also led him to a close understanding of all the terroirs and grapes he had at hand. “And he became practically one with the vines, he lives and dies for them. He’d never let anybody else prune them, for example,” Maria describes while Alex shyly smiles next to her.

In line with this intimate relationship to the natural wealth of their vineyards, the couple has been delving deeper into biodynamics – Alex closely follows the biodynamic calendar, uses the preparations and herbal teas, and lets the soil live healthily under a permanent cover crop. Caring for vineyards in this way is very time-consuming, and the couple is only aided by Alex’s father and an occasional paid intern, which means the space for growth is very limited – and Maria seems quite happy with this. “Yes, we could sell more wine if we had more vineyards, but there’s no space for that in our current setting. We’re not chasing growth or profit; we live a good life. A modest one, but one that’s led on our own terms, connected to nature, without unlimited consumption, without any debts. And it’s this independent spirit that I want to hand over to our three sons rather than a fancy winery.”

This down-to-earth, humble and environmentally conscious approach also shows in their branding choices – well aware of the footprint of shipping natural wine around the globe, the Koppitsches try to lessen their impact on the environment by working on every detail, like using natural cork closures or the lightest bottles available. “We also opted for a one-piece-only label to cut out the hundreds of kilometers of plastic they’re stuck on, and a simple recycled paper cardboard box without any tape or print on it, even though it disqualifies us from the “who has the coolest packaging“ race,” Maria laughs. But, as the myriad of fans that their wine has amassed show, the Koppitsches are more than winning in a race of their own.

 

Personality: a true balance of terroir characters here! The expressive character of the old vines of Gemischter Satz on rich soil combines with the delicate acidity of Welschriesling on limestone. “We’re playing around with carbonic maceration and length of skin contact, to have both the crispness and elegance as well as more earthy flavors and challenging fruit notes, typical for good skin-contact whites!” Maria says.

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AEON white — Back to the top

The estate’s top white cuvée made in a very limited quantity (600 – 1200 bottles only), only when the year permits. It comes from a vineyard that has been part of the family estate for the longest time and bears very special energy for Maria and Alex. As they put it themselves: “The Koppitsch family has been making wine in Neusiedl since the 16th century, therefore we profit from a very long winemaking tradition. Alex’s grandfather and father taught him everything they knew about the weather, soil types, the vines, and the grapes – all very precise knowledge, unique for our land in Neusiedl am See, passed on from generation to generation. As a farmer, one has a very deep connection to his/her land. The land has always been and will always be the very basis of what we do, connecting us with both past and future generations. Hence the name: eternity for us means we are part of our land’s timeline, reflecting the past and believing in the future, forever.”

Grape: Weissburgunder, Gruner Veltliner

Vineyard: Seefeld, a 0.27ha flat, dry, very windy plot right at the lake’s edge. The microclimate there gives the grapes very intense aromas. Old vines, planted in 1978 and 1980.

Making of: grapes are hand-harvested, then 50% goes straight into a screw press outside and 50% are destemmed and kept on skins for 2 weeks. Juice then goes straight into barriques (225L) where spontaneous fermentation occurs, each variety separately. The wines then spent more than 2 years on gross lees without any additives, manipulation, or temperature control. Blended together shortly before bottling (April 2022 for the 2019 vintage), bottled by handunfiltered, unfined, no sulfites added.

Personality: super intense and vibrant, might leave you starry-eyed, just like its label. “The disco vibe of this label is very deliberate – our land is our Disco, the place where we dance, get excited, get emotional, get upset, fall in love, get drunk
and make new friends,” Maria says.

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(When Life Gives You) Lemons — Back to the top

A special wine with a special story, a collectible for the Koppitsch fans out there! Available exclusively in mags (only around 100 magnums per vintage), the wine itself can change from vintage to vintage, depending on which special barrel Alex and Maria pick as the most vibrant and “Lemon-worthy”.

It all started with a “pinking” (a little darker color) of their 2018 Homok – Alex was thinking a lot about how to prevent this without having to use sulfur. Since he believed that Sauvignon Blanc was responsible for it, they picked SB separately and vinified it separately the vintage after. Carbonic maceration then turned it into an incredibly lively white that they decided to bottle separately, as a little special something for their fanbase.

As Maria says: “We would never have made a Sauvignon Blanc Carbonic if not for the pinking in Homok 2018. This fact pretty well matches the saying: When life gives you LEMONS, make lemonade from them. This explains it all, right?”

Grapes & Vineyards: depending on the vintage

Making of: hand-picked whole bunches were put into a 750l open-top plastic vat, which was then driven back to the cellar. The constant addition of CO2 ensured a precise fermentation. After 6 days, the bunches were stomped and the skin contact extended up to 16 days. Pressed straight into old barriques (225L). Natural fermentation, no temperature control at any stage of winemaking, occasional batonnage. Matured on gross lees for several months without any additives. No fining, no filtration, no sulfites added, bottled by hand.

Personality: 

2020: Pinot Noir (Seefeld vineyard, sandy soil, released March 2022). A lovely rosehip nose and vivid acidity

2019: Sauvignon Blanc (Satz vineyard, clay, released September 2020), “so good, so crisp so fresh – so much energy that it makes us giggle!” says Maria.

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Abendrot — Back to the top

Winemaker’s note: “Abendrot translates into afterglow. It’s all about Neuberg, and the grapes from Neuberg, the vineyard site on which we grow all the grapes for our Perspektive wines and Welschriesling for Touch. But this time, we thought it would be cool to have a wider focus on this particular site, by making a vibrant wine featuring all the grapes that we grow there.”

Vineyard: Neuberg, a rocky limestone hill with very poor soil in the northwest of Neusiedl that is part of the Leithaberg mountains.

Grapes: field blend of Welschriesling, Rosenmuskateller + a dash of Blaufrankisch and Saint Laurent, a dash of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc

Making of: the Welschriesling undergoes a skin-maceration, the Rosenmuskateller semi-carbonic maceration. Once fermented and rested, the wines are blended with a dash of Perspektive Rot and a dash of Perspektive Weiss wines. Bottled unfined, unfiltered, zero-sulfur added.

Personality: “Supra-varietal ginger wine! The color very much matches the afterglow colors before it flips into violet and blue. And the taste is just magical!” Maria Koppitsch says. 

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A Quiet Soft Light 2019 — Back to the top

Winemaker’s note: “We are so excited to show you this one! Every now and then there are barrels that are so outstanding that you cannot blend them into something else. Like these 2 barrels of Blaufrankisch from our Neuberg vineyard – one from the limestone part, the other from schist soil. They were so good that we wanted the wines to shine on their own! We kept them for one more year, and just as luck had it, they were the perfect match for each other, so we blended them into a brand-new and overly exciting wine. Total production about 600 bottles.” 

Grape: Blaufrankisch

Vineyard: Neuberg, a rocky limestone/schist hill with very poor soil in the northwest of Neusiedl that is part of the Leithaberg mountains.

Making of: the grapes were hand-harvested and macerated carbonically, then pressed and aged on lees in old neutral barrels. No additives, manipulation, or temperature control. Blended together shortly before bottling in April 2022, bottled by hand. Unfiltered, unfined, no sulfites added.

Personality: “very balanced yet vibrant, a tender touch with a heartwarming embrace in absolute silence. If we had to visualize how it tastes and feels, it would be a quiet soft light,” Maria Koppitsch describes this juicy red.

And the taste is just magical!” Maria Koppitsch says. 

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Cherry Pet Nat – When Life Gives You Cherries — Back to the top

Winemaker’s note: “It’s a collaboration between Koppitsch and Andrea Strohmayer, Maria’s sister. Andrea is a cherry farmer who cultivates old cherry varieties, that only grow along the hills of Leithaberg [where producers including Koppitsch, Altenburger, Tschida and Gut Oggau have vineyards]. The trees are very old and grow amongst the vineyards of the Leithaberg mountains. Andrea either picks the cherries from those trees herself, or the owners sell their fruit to her. We hope it brings joy to its adventurous drinkers ;).”

Fruit: Cherries, Blaufränkisch, Syrah 

Vineyard: In the Leithaberg mountains.

Making of: the cherries were hand-harvested and de-stoned, then fermented without any additives and bottled into PetNat bottles once fermentation began in July 2020. During that year’s harvest, it was disgorged and topped up with fermenting Pretty Nuts (a blend of Blaufränkisch and Syrah from the Leithaberg vineyard). It was disgorged a second time in September 2021 in order to remove the remaining sediment, then left to age for a year before its release. 

Personality: “It’s a great summer drink,” says Maria, who suggests adding soda water to make it a spritz and drinking it very chilled.