Weingut Paul Achs

The Free Bacchus Story

The biodynamic estates that travel best are mostly white-wine producers. Paul Achs makes red, at Gols on the Neusiedlersee in Burgenland, on soils of sand, gravel, clay and chernozem.

Burgenland is Austria's red-wine country and it is the part of Austrian wine that travels least well, largely because the grapes are unfamiliar. That is the whole opportunity: these are medium-bodied, savoury reds with real acidity and moderate alcohol, closer in shape to a Loire red or a cool-climate Syrah than to anything from Australia or Napa. If the reds you drink are getting heavier every year, this is the direction back.

The lake matters more than it looks. Neusiedlersee is broad and shallow, and it moderates a climate that would otherwise be plainly continental, giving long autumns that let red grapes ripen slowly rather than fast.

Achs describes himself as a biographer of his wines, which is a slightly grand way of putting it, but the underlying idea is ordinary enough: the vineyard supplies the material and the winemaking is supposed to report it rather than improve it.

He is on respekt-BIODYN's published register. Membership requires EU organic certification; the certificate number is not confirmed here, and no flagship bottling or price is recorded yet.