Christian Tschida

Natural wines – laissez faire

Christian Tschida‘s undoubtedly seductive natural wines have made it to the worlds’ top restaurants as well as many natural wine lovers’ wine shelves. You’ll easily recognize his elegant labels and the winemaker himself in his iconic leather jacket. Enter the “Heaven on Earth” and let a new “Chapter” begin!

tschida vineyard

Christian Tschida – No wine, no life

Laissez-faire, as the French say: “Leave everything to the game of natural forces. No strict order, no fixed rules, no dogmas.” Christian Tschida’s concept of natural winemaking is in parallel with the vision of how he sees the world.

Tschida, with his iconic leather jacket and his seductive natural wines, has established a solid status among natural wine lovers.

Four generations in wine making

His family has been making wine for four generations in Burgenland, Austria. And according to Christian, he could never have imagined anything else but following in his ancestors’ footsteps. He took over the 10-hectare vineyard when he was 27 and he just  knew that he had to change the traditional concept and create something free without any complicated techniques. “A wine that reflects my attitude”, he says.

His claims, that his taste is refined by the characteristics of the vineyard itself, which he feels extremely lucky with. The fantastic vineyards of Burgenland offer incredibly intensely flavorful grapes and a refined result, which excitingly differs slightly with every vintage.

Grapes and soil

His red wines range from Blaufränkisch to Cabernet Franc that grow on sandy gravel and limestone which is typical for the area. His techniques are, however, quite unique and different from his neighbors’.

He believes that excellent wine starts with healthy soil. His vineyards boast plant and animal life – a tribute to his natural approach, which he refers to as the “laissez-faire” style. But also in the cellar Tschida walks the-path-less-traveled and uses a so-called vertical basket press instead of a manual one, which is much lighter and extracts only the best juices from the grapes. The wines are then allowed to develop completely and without intervention in barrels where they are said to achieve their inner balance. Sometimes this process can take up to 5 years, however it’s so worth the wait because the outcome is simply devine. Fermentation always starts spontaneously, he doesn’t add any sulfites to his wines and does the bottling by hand.

If you still have questions, find the answers “filled in bottles”, he says with a mischievous grin and we highly recommend you do just that :-).

 

Christian Tschida’s webpage