Weingut Hans & Anita Nittnaus

The Free Bacchus Story

Four questions, on the family's page on the respekt-BIODYN growers' association's site, do more than most estates manage in a paragraph. More work? More risk? Less earnings? Accepted. Biodynamic farming is usually sold on what it gives back; it is rarer to see a producer set out the bill first.

The estate is at Gols in Burgenland and works two distinct terroirs rather than one. East of the Neusiedlersee the soils are sandy clay with flint through them; up in the Leitha hills they turn to limestone and slate. The same family farms both, which means the wines can be compared against each other with the grower held constant.

The grapes are the part nobody tells you. Burgenland's signature red is Blaufränkisch — say it once out loud and it stops being intimidating — and it behaves like a cool-climate grape rather than a warm one: dark fruit, firm acidity, a peppery savoury edge, and a tannin that grips without drying the mouth out. Zweigelt and St. Laurent fill in around it, softer and quicker to like. On the limestone up in the Leitha hills the same grapes turn stony and tightly wound, and ask for a few years in the bottle.

It is run by Hans and Anita with their sons Andreas and Martin and their niece Lydia, which is two generations working the same two hillsides.

Hans Nittnaus was one of the growers who founded that association in 2007, and in 2026 the family left it on friendly terms to go their own way, so the estate no longer holds a biodynamic certification. It is certified organic. The EU register lists Weingut A & H Nittnaus GmbH in Gols, with the Austrian control body LACON, for its grapes and its wine.