FLC#5 / Arnold Holzer

For our fifth First Look Club meetup we talked with Arnold Holzer and tasted his Roter Veltliner 'das Geholz'.

Video transcript: 

Ronan. [00:00:00]
How are things in Australia at the moment?

Arnold Holzer. [00:00:00]
Yeah, it's an exciting time. You know, we had this Terrorist attack on Monday. People are taking it OK. Except in Vienna, of course. People in the first district and the centre are still kind of nervous or worried. But, you know, here, in the country, life goes on. 

Ronan. [00:01:00]
It was shocking; you know what your right, life has to go on, and so do we.

Arnold [00:01:00]
For us in Austria, we are such a tiny country, and we never thought that Something like this could ever happen in our country. We are a nobody in the middle of nowhere in Europe, you know, we are not as prominent as a country, which makes it more shocking, to be honest, but on the other hand, it can happen in any large city.

Ronan. [00:01:20]
What is the population of Austria?

Arnold [00:01:27]
We have about 8.5 million; Vienna is the second-largest German-speaking city. Berlin is larger than they have. 2.2 or something around.

Ronan: [00:02:00]
I want to talk a bit about Austria. I have a bit of a theme for any time we discuss with a winemaker. You know, we talked a lot in our last meetup about natural wine-making, but I don't know how well understood Austria is as a wine-producing region by people here in Ireland.

And I think Gruner Veltliner has become popular in the last three, four or five years, but I don't know how common or how well-known it is as a country. So let's talk a bit about Austria. I read something today that the total production of Austria for wine is like 46,000 hectares of vines.
Whereas Bordeaux has over 120,000 hectares of vine. So that gives you a bit of context.

Arnold [00:03:00]
It is more production. And I have to say; I think 90% is consumed in our country. What we are exporting is more like bulk wine? Quality wine, this sort of dropped in due to bad harvest about ten years ago. So, at the same time, larger companies started to import wine in bulk or because there was nothing for very cheap on the shelves in the supermarkets, and on the other hand, when we had better harvest, we had too much wine. So the prices dropped again.

The people in Austria don't drink any wines from other countries, you know, we drink mainly mid german and Riesling,

Arnold [00:04:00]
maybe something from Italy, because of people going on holiday, you hardly find wines from Spain or the new worlds. It's tough to find here.
So, people still keep on drinking. And that changed a little bit because I grew up just drinking wine to have fun and not thinking about it, you know. Now the people are more educated about wine drinking. With the internet, people are now getting interested in new things, especially the younger generation, my age or younger, are trying out new things. They want to consume; it’s become kind of hipster, you know,

Ronan [00:05:00]
It's funny. You say hipster; I've been quite taken the last few years with how many young winemakers like yourself are in Austria, who are doing enjoyable and exciting things.
Whether it's making orange wine, it seems there are a lot of producers using skin contact, a lot of organic farming, a lot of natural or low intervention, winemaking. Do you find that’s just with a lot of people your age? I know natural wine or a way to not come from.

Arnold [00:06:00]
It started when some of the younger generations took over the winery; you know, the older generation still worked there sometimes but didn't have an opportunity to try new things. Or maybe, for example, they had a good business and didn't need to try anything new. They made the business from year to year and are happy with the wine-producing they do. For instance, a very good friend in my town who is just 28 does this. He has been making wine for eight years now, and he makes his wines, all year in the same style and doesn’t have to change anything; sometimes from year to year, he may try out something a little bit different, but for him, it's too hard to sell it. Because we, you have something to explain and he's happy with it. And then there others from our generation like me, who always want to try something new.

Arnold [00:07:00]
I try to find new ways to make wine or will suffocate to wines, as many ways as possible, to create something unique, something new also to try out, it's also like exploring how the wine develops then later. That, for me, is winemaking, you know, it's more like, how are you, a person you are, Because, in my first years, I also did just wine to get the business run, you know? But after two or three years, I felt there should be something more, "this couldn't be all", you know. It felt like it needed to be more, Put yourself in, or give yourself a life goal.

Ronan [00:08:00]
You know you are pretty experimental. Just to tell the people in the group, aside from the Bottle project, a big part of our business is wine. On top of Arnold's supplies us with wine in kegs and one by the glass. Last year, we had wine together over WhatsApp. Skin contact Gruner Veltliner to put only in the kegs. And that was fun. You were very receptive to the idea of sending some pictures and asking how does the colour look? And no, let's not filter too heTowas great. I appreciate that you're very open to new ideas about you, and you're very open to experimenting.

Arnold [00:09:00]
You know, to develop new things is my kind of life goal; otherwise, it would be boring if you do the same thing every year. Also, I see it from the business point. Nowadays, business is hard and, no one is sleeping and. To keep the company or winery on the radar, you have to be current and try new things.

Ronan [00:09:20]
Let's talk a bit about incredible Austria. So what are the most popular grapes grown there?

Arnold [00:09:29]
Should I tell the whole story?

Ronan [00:10:00]
Yes, please. If there's a story to tell, let’s hear.

Arnold [00:10:07]
This all began, you might know, we had a vine scandal in the early eighties.

Ronan [00:10:18]
I didn't think we would talk about it since you know it's before my time. I was three years old; it’s okay.

Arnold [00:10:26]
The export and everything, all the wine business broke down. Although we had a good house, the problem was the marketing; there was also the founding of the Austrian wine marketing border. It’s a bit Political, let's say, and they decided we need to make good wine. So we have one of the strictest wine laws in the world and, they said it's just allowed to make quality wine from one incredible body and especially better whites, very outcome.
Yeah, then Gruner, which is the easiest grape or the bell growing grape here. We also do other grape varieties here in our surroundings (or there is a little bit, like opera).?( Mentioned wines here that I couldn't make out) All the focus was on Gruner for example, but the wineries, where like, my winery, my dad had in the early nineties, just 30% of Gruner veltliner. And, we had like most ultimate Lena and, All of it. Nina's great varieties don't exist anymore.

For example, really old wines, but, You have to think. Also, the vineyards looked horrible, very old. In the nineties, the tractor’s technique and everything showed like, in one row and straight. People started to replant old vineyards, which the government supported, and the government still supports.

. And, so people started to replant and then we had like a red wine boom in the early two-thousand, everyone was planting swaggy again which is one of the most popular red grape now we go back again to Gruner. It’s crazy, to be honest because some wineries killed the vineyards, I don't know, ten years old and replanting them to Gruner again because they don't need a red anymore.

Ronan [00:13:00)
it's quite interesting. So, you know, everybody is focusing on Gruner Veltliner, but it's pretty rare in any wine-making country that there have not been many invasions of, say, French varietals.

I know you can find good producers of shad, and they sold me on blank, but I like you specialising in Gruner Veltliner the rotor, which we'll try tonight. You know, bell Frankie and their indigenous local varieties. And I think that's something that's probably pretty unique about.

Austria, I think he goes to any other wine-producing country in the world, and yes, they have their local grapes. Still, almost every winery makes like a signature, very expensive Merlot or Chardonnay or something, you know, and I think. That's something interesting about Austria that you hold on to your local varieties So proudly.

Arnold [00:14:00]
because the people in Austria just drink this grape, you know, if I plant the ten hectares of Charlemagne, I can't sell it, especially Trina.

We have to be in Syria and, You know, Austria is to the central wine regions, the North, in lower Austria in my surroundings. And then in the East improvement lounge, hosted rats and then in the thousands, area. And they have mostly Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Well, they are very popular there.

You hardly Slovenianer or anywhere, so they're on that. They're on the Italian border. Yeah. They are Slovenia and really on the hot bullet. Like they have one. There was a Hill and, on the Hill is the border and is on the Hill. And on the other side, there is Slovenian, winery, and now, you know, with open boils, everything is, what can I say?

Ronan [00:15:10]
a little grey, no?

Arnold [00:15:13]
They took over, for example, larger wineries in Serbia to go with Slovenian,

You see it in and for ULI in Italy, a lot and the border with Slovenia and you know, so sometimes, sometimes vines might go on the other side of the Hill now. It's like sheep between the North and the Republic. It's sometimes cheaper bent next. Cause they don't know which country they're in because they're brought up and down the road so much.

Ronan [00:15:13]
That's, so that's yeah, that's cool. I didn't know.

Arnold [00:15:17]
We have this, North, So the Czech Republic is also a wine area in the Czech Republic. And that's also on the other, I mean, we have that, you need some kilometres to go over the border because we have this Iron border and, you know, when East-West meet, then the Czech one-yard style and they have also much Gruner Veltliner, much reasoning and Chardonnay and so on.

Ronan [00:16:21]
So do they call Gruner Veltliner Gruner Veltliner in Czech Republic or.

Arnold [00:16:25]
Yes, they do, yeah; it’s also funny because they have because of communism, they have just a handful of large wineries, and the rest are really small unit wineries.
The larger companies or import companies or wine wholesalers, importing greener from Austria because, They, on the other hand, sometimes are not happy with the quality from their own, large companies or, it's like fighting, or they can't take the wines because the other one has it.

Ronan [00:17:01]
If you were to about, say Gruner Veltliner, Riesling as probably the two most notable white wines, what makes Austrian versions of those wines unique? What's different about wine from Austria than from anywhere else?

Arnold [00:18:00]
I would say, if you take Riesling, for example, I don't know. I think Austrian Riesling is more balanced and focused on fruit. I think, if you know, German Riesling, they're mostly very acidic. They focus on acidity, like muscle loss; for example, I love riesling. It's me. But German Riesling is often more for wine drinkers, you know, for the person who can handle their wine.
I think Austria makes more comfortable Riesling more geared for everyday drinking.
As I said, it's more modern; it’s a fruit point, you know, I hardly find them in Germany?

Ronan [00:19:00]
I think you always get beautiful, fresh acidity in Austria, but you get a little more richness, a bit more ripeness. They're always really lovely, very approachable fruits into wines, and I like that they're accessible, you know, they're easy to enjoy

Arnold [00:19:43]
It's always funny because people here are, especially with just the basic stuff, you know, it's all made like you can drink one and then another. It’s more economic stuff, economic, and we Austrians are kind of alcoholics, you know?

Ronan [00:20:02]
I mean, cause there isn't a tradition of jug wine, like one Litre bottles of wine that you see under beer caps/ crown caps.; before

Arnold [00:20:50]
We have this, and we also had like a double litre. This was very appointed gastronomic; before the keg stuff started, every winery in Austria had this two-litre and, it's like we set the Austrian Magnum.

Ronan [00:21:02]
Is it like a flaggin of wine? Like we bottle cider here. I think it's something like 2.5 litres, but it's like a big plastic bottle, but there's like a handle built into the neck of it.

Arnold [00:21:31]
Like in a wine now, but, but the drink, it really did it. I can remember this from the older people. When I was young, they had tiny, tiny glasses and this large two-litre bottle. And, I know there is a group photo of my grandfather and his neighbour, sitting in the Backstreet at the table and on Sunday off. Well, during the week on a sunny afternoonThey're sitting there at the table and drinking two litres of wine together. And then they would maybe drive out in the evening for work again, into the vineyard. Life was not so fast-paced or stressful for them, and people just enjoyed being alive. They seemed happy with what they had and lived a more simple life. It was a not so stressful and not so fast life.

Ronan [00:23:04]
And so your winery is in Vagram, right. And so, what's Wagram like as a region? If you know what I think of Austria, I immediately think of the Alps and giant mountains.

Arnold [00:23:47]
So our village is located at 50 kilometres or 55 kilometres in the West of Vienna, and the Wagram starts on the West of Vienna and goes along the Danube.
I mean, next West starts to come? Rahal is like a very, with the slopes and terraces and they have more, Stoney, soils. It’s like the Danube is not next to us; we are under, there is a large valley, we call it Tourneau phase Tourneau valley at the town in the middle. And we have on the less soil on Northern bank.

Ronan [00:24:05]
Because it's like clay, right?

Arnold [00:24:17]
yeah! and it's also like terraces, which rise quite high, especially our village, is on the highest part and in front of our venue and Markham. (couldn't make out the names of other regions he mentioned)
They are slightly lower, and it's a more hilly landscape than( the wind,) futile stars, and (Derek.)
They have, again, all kinds of soil. So it's, you can't say that as a typical soil, just here in Wagram on, we have this, really 100% less and it's so funny because, if I go to the next regions they are all within just 40 kilometres.( he mentioned the names of the regions here, I couldn't make them out)
They all kilometres styles, and you taste these styles in the wine. Then some expect in just some kilometers, you know, because when you think of
Other wine regions have sizes more prominent than the whole of Austria. It’s really cool. If you make a wine trip, you can see many different areas within some kilometres.

Ronan [00:24:58]
So that's very cool. You know, it's one of the more nerdy things about wine, but I think the more you get into wine, the first things you start to learn about are, I suppose, how the climate might affect the styles of wine. But as you dig deeper, you begin to realise the impact of the land, as well. It’s that idea of Clay or lowest for red wines; it gives you the power of white wines and gives you more fruitiness where as you mentioned, like granite or limestone earlier, they give you more mineral quality. And I think that's just the more you sort of dig into the subject. The more you start to see all these things have a big part to play and then obviously you as the winemaker. You've got, you know, you're going to decide when you're going to pick the grapes, what you're going to do with them when they get into the winery, how long you'll wait before you bottle on, then someone like us, depending on the market will decide how long it takes before the wine gets sold and onto someone's table.

Arnold [00:25:40]
If someone talks about taboo, it starts, like you said, of course from the soil, and from the plant, which kind of family, for example, you Gruner Valtinlena, you plant and then, of course, various plants. And then, what do you do with it, when do you pick your grapes? What do you do in the ? and so on and so on.
Like are you might have heard of the winery called Neiderosterreich. (And, in the meantime, also some other wineries didn't sit in, and I was around next, in this example).
Niederösterreich did something kind of unusual, with some winery, friends, a winery from Germany, I think, and another one from Germany, I don't know the region. They met together on the German side of the Austrian German border. And everyone exchanged grapes. Everyone has three charges of grapes, and they filled their home cellar with spontaneous fermentation. But they did nothing special, to cool down or, no controlling or anything like this. They just wanted to see how the wines would taste. They sold it in a box of nine wines although the half it was really funny because you taste all wineries out and especially, YouTube, the Austrian one, it's like Austrian Riesling, but also with the (child and grips)

Ronan [00:27:00]
Just the effect of, I don't know the atmosphere where this is the,

Arnold [00:27:09]
This is the point. So in the cellar, you have like a wine cellar is like a living flora, you know, it's like our own system of living, you know, and how has to staff, it's a typical thing first to have it start wrong long.

The fermentation starts and the last juice you get takes minutes. And it begins because you have so many yeasts in the air, you have like, So, each wine infects, the other one and altogether makes, makes your wines and all wines infect. The other one also means if you have some shit charges and your cellar is also infecting their good charges.

So you have, but like in our brewery, uh, the brewery, if you have a bad yeast in a brewery, you have to clean everything out and start new.

Ronan [00:28:01]
It's like why you'd never completely clean your barbecue. You've got to leave a bit of seasoning in there, you know.

Arnold [00:28:22]
For example, but there's also means in the wine cellar, if everything works well, you can be sure that all goes on well, that's the most important( infection of terror.)

Ronan [00:29:02]
I've just opened the Rotor; if anyone has any questions, feel free to type them into the chatbox, and we can ask Arnold as we go. Tell us about this because it's not great before we took this little parcel to offer for the first look club. It's not great, you know, in 20 years of buying wine that I'd ever tasted before. And so I was fascinated to see what it was. So tell us about the Roter Veltliner.

Arnold [00:29:30]
Yes, Roter Veltliner shares the same name as Gruner Veltliner but they are not related. Roter Veltliner is out of -----?--- valley, and just 200 hectares remain in existence and mainly in our region.

As I mentioned before, in the nineties, it was the most planted grape right here in the Wagram. You can make bulk wine with it? So if you want, you can make a really easy wine, and then you can harvest 20 tons per Hector and the plants to handle it without dying. We do like you, the grapes, the bunches to get like this size is enormous.
And what we do in Summer is we're doing a green harvest. We have to split the grip. We do 60 or 70% lifting on the floor. And then we still have an average harvest where it's like six to seven tons per hectare.

The rest of the grape, the berries have enough space to expand, And then, the Rota Veltliner is more; it’s like a neutral grey body Gruner Veltliner is more, so teachers are automatic and, new pedal then they'll say, Roter Veltliner is more comparable to Pinot Blanc or chardonnay. This is more round on the palate. Not the honey notes. I did a little focus on it, just a general, with people from my generation, with this grapevine we like, it was a success I think,

Ronan [00:31:40]
Yeah, It's really good. What, what's the, what's the deal with the lady in the barrel? What's her buzz?

Arnold [00:32:04]
because of the creative ideas, so the plan is how to handle them. We have a little marketing booklet or book in our region. Where the grey part is called a diva and, on the label, it's like the diva, caught in the barrel because it's also then, after harvest, it's the wine, this wine is 20, 2017, spontaneous fermentation in a 500 litre French Oak, and stored for 16 months on the fine years and, bottled, unfiltered, and that's it.

Ronan [00:33:02]
We’ve never talked about Oak before when we've done our meetups. So it’s probably a pretty good time to do it. You said 500-litre barrel, which is larger than usual because a French barrel is 225. So what's the difference if you decide to put wine into a larger barrel.

Arnold [00:33:34]
I want to have larger barrels if I can. In general, the trend to Oak barrels, especially neutral ones also in there by the reds, is really popular at the moment. At the moment, popular because you give. With Oak, the wine wraps more, you know, it's more like the wine works with oxidation a little bit better and drives better. You can't do this with stainless steel, especially when you use screw caps with a young entry-level wine. That’s fine.

If you go up in the quality, you need some ripeness and, you can't get this with stainless steel; you just get this with barrels and why I'm using 500 litres is to get less Oak taste or flavour as possible.
Therefore, you have to use a new one because you have to start somewhere, you know, you have to use it, I can't buy it. In the meantime, I always get mail from wineries offering to provide you three time fills, four-time fills, five times barrels, and it's really good. But it's not that, especially now with new ones. Five-litre barrels are easier to handle that than 1,000-litre barrels, but also the way we are going at the moment.

But this also takes time and money because a barrel maker here for a 1000 litre bottle, 1000 litre barrel, costs 7,000 to 8,000 Euro. A 1000 litre barrel, for example, it's like seven or eight times more expensive than a stainless steel tank.
At the moment, everyone invested in the new winery, and everything was fresh and new and stainless steel, and now everyone's stopped again to reinvest in new, new Oak barrels. Unfortunately, we had some very good ones in the old wine cellar, which I still use about my dad when we did our new wine cellar. My dad was, just like I said, like, okay, let's keep it for the reds.

Of course we'll be fine. But we had a really good one for whites, and they are now red. And, you can't go back now. I have just one, one left with white and for example, I have a pinot blanc now inside still fermenting, for instance, in the 500-litre barrels I have now because I have a Riesling, I got the chance to get a reading old, like a 60 or 65-year-old venture reasoning, Vanya I think I said, I'd try it out.

Ronan [00:37:00]
I love what the oak brings to this. Because as you said, the grape explains, it's kind of a neutral enough variety that you've got enough Oak here to give you some spice, a little bit of flavour on some and some physical properties like tannin and, and a little bit of heat. And then it just adds a lot of complexity. I think it's great.

Arnold [00:37:26]
Also, you have a French teacher aromatic still on the side with a medium-long finish. For this wine, I was inspired by Chardonnay from Burgundy and thought it could work with Roter Veltliner. It's not the same style, but it's similar, and I'm really happy with it.

Ronan [00:38:07]
So, it's funny; you said that because Paul, who works with us, tasted this when the parcel came in, whatever that was maybe four weeks ago. And he texted me to say; it’s very Burgundian. He said he actually said it reminded him of wine from burgundy. So you mentioned the screw caps. I keep forgetting it's back to front.
Yeah, that's something unique about Austria. I think Austria probably has more winemakers who have wine completely under screw caps than anywhere else I've seen. Like, it seems just to be you guys when you were early to that party, and you've, you're still there, and you're just still hanging out.
What, what is it that you think, uh, what, what's the difference between putting a wine under a screw cap versus under cork?

Arnold [00:39:01]
From the quality side, I think it depends. I think it's better to use a screw cap, to be honest. Currently, the trend here in Austria is to have a cork for high-quality wines, which is a middle-range up.

Some wineries use cork for the middle and the higher price range because you get the cork’s quality again; it’s one reason. And on the other hand, it's like a tradition or the restaurants want to make a show. If the wine has a screw cap, it is perceived as cheap, you know. One reason screw caps took off so fast in Austria was because of the German market. We were also one of the first wineries to have the one-litre bottles, one of the first wineries in Austria for one-litre bottles with screw cap, because of Germans were the first.

To want this for the guests, and then it grew fast. And then the Austrian, because of touristic areas, they said, this is a cool idea, let's do this. So the change was very fast, but for entry-level wines, it's the best thing that ever could happen because you can open, then close the bottle again or take it with you to drink with a friend.

Ronan [00:40:47]
So, and there's no, there's no failure rate. Like with cork, I know when I started in the wine trade, we used to say it was one bottle in every case of 12. You expect that there'd be a problem when you think back to that; that’s completely crazy. If you had like 1 in 12 failure rates with anything else in the world, people would be going crazy.

Arnold [00:41:08]
This was before my time. If I both have such conditions with my closures, I don't know what I would have done because my dad also told me we also did, like, 20 or 25 years ago, we had these plastic Corks. If you think about that, this was horrible.
But yeah, people were looking for new closures and, because of those are about the price. Also, the better qualities get or the more expensive wines. I had problems with bad corks as they did not have the technique to check the Corks. Nowadays, each cork is checked off at 99.9%. So we can tell if the cork is good or not, and below now all the time, it's also a price thing. One cork we never had was the glass cork.

Some wineries tried it, others did not, but it's not very popular and hard to find now; in Austria, it was also a good closure, but the most expensive one.

Ronan [00:41:08]
So at the moment we import from you two Gruner, Veltliners a skin contact, like an orange wine Zweigelt Riesling, Rotor Veltliner. Do you have any other ideas of styles of wine, so? You said that you've Welsh Riesling. You have some new pinot blanc in the barrel as well. Is there anything else that you think? “Oh, Hey, I'd like to try to do some time?”

Arnold [00:41:37]
Who I think, for example, is now my first own real vindicated wine because the last two years I just blended it into Gruner, you know, in large volumes because it's like a bit of wine, 100 kilos, if it was maybe eight/ 900 kilos.
And, I was a pinot blanc. We did pinot blanc for years, but when I took over the winery ten years ago, the business was almost zero, so I said, Okay, Let's stop it. This summer, I opened some old bottles, like vintage 2012 and winter 28 or 2008. And 23. 2001.

and it was astonishing how good the wine was and, you know, ripens really well. And our problem, I think, was bringing out a new vintage in spring after harvest, which is also a very Austrian thing. You can now already get the new vintage in Austria, and they are selling really well.

It's also a remnant from the vine scandal to get the cellar emptied fast. The wine marketing border consistently markets the young wines and do promotions, you know, for November, for Christmas. There is a lot of marketing and promotion done nationwide, especially for the [00:45:00] skiing areas.

These wines are totally shit in spring, but everyone wants a new vintage spring and later. And, there's also the trend here; everyone goes back. So, for example, bringing out the new vintage before harvest. And for example, especially in the better qualities then, which makes much more sense because wine needs time, you can't influence this in any way or in a good way.

Ronan [00:46:10]
Yeah. Yeah. I feel that something in Ireland that most, we just don't really care about vintage. It's not something; it’s not our first things to think about when we're drinking wine for fun because all of our alcohols are produced and are non-vintage. You know, it's whiskey or gin or beer, you know, we don't grow wine.
We don't grow grapes to make wine. I should say. Um, it's something that I think outside of people who are going to go; hey, I want, you know, something very special. What vintage is that? I think the average customer is just. You know, it's, it's not so important. You mentioned you, just before we go, you mentioned your father quite a few times.
Is he still involved in the winery still involved?

Arnold [00:47:01]
He is still involved, yeah. He's retired, so my parents are retired. My mom is a grandma, to my brothers and sisters kids. My dad wants to help me, and I have to try to find some work for him. Mostly give him like delivery work, driving or bringing wine to old customers. If we really need him, like this week for bottling, he really helps us because If I have to go to a meeting and I was two hours away or two hours out. And he jumps in for me; for example, it's absolutely no problem. I am really grateful; I really give the winery this direction that I don't need them to help because wineries are larger than me. And then they're the old one still working full-time there. And if they won't be there, the winery wouldn't.

Ronan [00:47:51]
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Arnold [00:48:02]
For me, this was important. So if the others that I work much more than an average winemaker, probably, but, for me, it means so much, to give my parents the freedom, that they can do what they want. Because I also got the freedom when I was young.
I also always had to help them. Especially when it's supposed to be serious work to do, but I grew up with it for me, it is not a must to do for me.
It was like, okay, there's harvest, after school, I was in the wine cellar, you know, and that's how I learned how to feel the crop, you know.
It’s more like a feeling when you're out in the winery. When you have to pick the grapes. I don't measure anything, or I measure things; it’s more like a gut feeling. I don't go to GRI, create creations or something like this. I taste more, and when I think it's ripe, then I do the house.

Ronan [00:49:03]
How long have your family been making wine?

Arnold [00:49:11]
I'm the fifth generation, so, I'm sure for 100 years now, a bit more, the old wine cellars, definitely more than a hundred years old or more than 120 years old but we were a mixed farm, you know. So I'm doing 20 hectares last year and converting to organic next winter, just organic. My brother, my oldest brother, because I'm the youngest of four: he took over the field, so he grows potatoes, corn and so on as well. He had just 30 hectares, but he's now doing over 300 hectares, all organic because all wineries, all farms here in Austria.

If they have no one who goes on, then they rent the fields or specialise. Then you can, we took over still existing wineries or farmers, took their fields or rent fields. Like the winners or the farmers, specialised, for example, one, give away his wine yards to specialised areas, these specialists in fields. And on the other hand, wineries give away the fields and to be specialised in wine because, on the other hand, it's too small to make it or rent. So you can still get the bit of rent out and, so it's everywhere because in Austria we had really small structures, you know, we didn't have the average size of an Austrian pharma is like 10 hectares. Small

And it's all supported by the government because the Austrian want small family-run farms. That's the reason. And in the eighties, we also had cows and pigs and other things. So we run a classic, mixed farm wine field and cattle. But this was all before my time.

Ronan [00:52:03]
Brilliant. Well, look, thanks a mil Arnold, that was really interesting. I think this is great. I love that wine that a little bit, the oak brings the aromas, that acidity that you just, I think you get that little Austrian whites that really lovely acidity and a little bit of minerality and it gets super, um, we'll definitely buy some more of it. Cool. Thanks a mil for tuning in and talking to us. I really appreciate it. Good luck with the rest of the bottling and when the Welsh Riesling is done. We'd love to have a taste of that too. All right.

Arnold [00:53:07]
Thanks. Bye-bye.
There are some things I couldn’t make out, especially when he was talking about the Slovenia borders etc, also some of the regions.