Winery Georg Schmelzer

Georg Schmelzer is a man of experimentation and empiricism. He fundamentally questions conventional teachings and couldn’t care less about trends. Year after year, he bottles wines that clearly bear his personal signature—yet also speak of Gols and Lake Neusiedl.

Examples of his independent approach are woven throughout his life as a winemaker. The only real exception was at the very beginning, when—just 17 years old—he suddenly had to take over the family winery on the outskirts of Gols and focus on securing its economic foundation. Starting out doesn’t leave much room for experimentation, but those early years laid the groundwork for future projects he would soon pursue. In 1987, he was one of the first in the region to put a few barrique barrels in his cellar and plant Cabernet Sauvignon. Unlike many of his fellow winemakers in Gols, he never fully warmed to the finesse and subtlety associated with Burgundy and Pinot Noir. Cabernet Sauvignon is his variety—even if getting it fully ripe is a gamble every year. Even in the best vintages, he harvests no more than 3,000 kilos per hectare, which is why he rarely bottles it as a single-varietal wine.

His affinity for expressive wines may also explain why, years later, he planted part of his vineyards with Rösler—a disease-resistant interspecific crossing of Zweigelt and Klosterneuburg 1189-9-77. Intensely colored, dark, and rich in tannins, Rösler has a stylistic kinship with Cabernet Sauvignon and lends itself well to extended barrel aging. At the same time, Schmelzer has always cared for his Zweigelt vineyards, which remain his most important red grape. On this front, too, he holds an opinion that would make for lively debate among winemakers: he believes that wines become more complex when they’re made from grapes grown in a variety of different vineyard sites rather than a single one.

In 2007, he made a pivotal decision—arguably the most important one in his personal journey as a winemaker. That year, he converted his vineyards to biodynamic farming and began rethinking his entire approach. He started working with classic biodynamic preparations but was driven above all by a desire to become a more conscious and committed vigneron.

Today, walking through one of his vineyards feels like moving through a thriving, self-contained ecosystem. Life teems in the soil, and the overall impression is one of genuine ecological balance.

In the cellar, he gives his wines total freedom. And his world is not just red: 55% of his wines are white. With them too, he has long gone his own way. For over 25 years, he has left his white grapes on the skins for nearly a full day after harvest, resulting in white wines with a subtle but noticeable tannin structure. The avant-garde of his white wines is represented by two interpretations released under the label Schlicht & Ergreifend (“Plain & Simple”), which demonstrate what happens when wine is simply allowed to become. A red counterpart, Zauber des Verzichts (“The Magic of Restraint”), impresses with the same philosophy.

Meanwhile, Schmelzer now applies his hands-off approach even to his more seemingly "classical" wines, producing increasingly dynamic, substantial, and profound expressions with each passing year.