Pittnauer Pinot Noir 2019 (6 Bottles) Burgenland, Austria

$216.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

This is velvety and smooth, with red fruit everywhere. Cherries and strawberries. Ripe and juicy. Initially round and soft, it tapers along its way through the mouth and runs straight as a train over the palate. It combines substance with drinkability and levity with depth. It’s one of the few red wines which goes perfectly well with fish. – Gerhard Pittnauer

The fruit for Pittnauer Pinot Noir grows on the gravelly brown soils of the Goldberg, Zwickelacker and Holzacker vineyards. Pinot Noir stands in big letters on the label and Pinot Noir takes centre stage in this wine. Origin is – as always – important but backs down in favour of the variety. Since Pinot Noir is one of the great translators of terroir, this might come as a surprise. But what is true for Burgundy and other lime-based regions – the calcareous soils of the Leithaberg, for example – does not apply to our vineyards: our grapes come from the plains of the Parndorfer Platte, and its flat, sandy and windy plots. It is no terroir for subtle and complex, soil-driven Pinot Noir but one where the tender, radiant, vivid, precise, immediate and captivating delicacy of the fruit gets all the glory. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks, maturation in 500-litre wooden barrels.

This is velvety and smooth, with red fruit everywhere. Cherries and strawberries. Ripe and juicy. Initially round and soft, it tapers along its way through the mouth and runs straight as a train over the palate. It combines substance with drinkability and levity with depth. It’s one of the few red wines which goes perfectly well with fish. – Gerhard Pittnauer

Description

About Gerhard Pittnauer

Gerhard Pittnauer is located on the east shore of the Neusiedlersee in Austria’s Burgenland region, which is at the eastern extremity of Austria bordering with Hungary. He’s interested in biodynamics, which he’s now implementing in his vineyards, and he told me that he stopped spraying synthetic chemicals last year. ‘We only use sulphur and copper’, Gerhard emphasizes, ‘and we spray BD500 and BD501’.

These are two of the biodynamic preparations that assist with plant and soil health. ‘We use a quadbike as well as the tractor to spray, because this has less weight’, says Gerhard. ‘We use mechanical tilling, and this year I will try a natural green cover beneath the vines.’ He reports that he’s very pleased with the results of the 2006 vintage, when he didn’t use selected yeasts. ‘The results are wonderful.’

Switching to biodynamics so far seems to have gone well for Pittnauer. ‘It was a big risk to change everything, but now I’m happy and optimistic for the future’. The wines tasted here were impressive, even if three of them weren’t made with the help of biodynamics.

CellarHand

CellarHand is a fine-wine importer and wholesale distributor, with a portfolio featuring some of the most sought-after estates of Germany, Austria, France and Italy, as well some of the greatest producers from Australia and New Zealand. Our ethos has always been to build a portfolio as you’d construct the perfect wine list. We work with small, family producers who express the best of their regions. The wines we sell are the wines we enjoy, and the people who make them are like family to us. They are wines that taste of where they come from, and though they’re steeped in history and stamped with the signature of their terroir, they’re more than ever relevant – and desirable – to the Australian diner of today.