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Hello, and welcome to The Wineitupanotch Podcast, a podcast where we talk about wine, life, and everything in between. My name is Anshu Grover. I'm your host, and I'm so glad that you've decided to join me today. Thank you for doing so.

Today, I have a very special podcast episode for you where I'm going to be taking you behind the scenes.

As many know, I am currently in the stage one of the Masters of Wine study program, and as part of that, I get to talk to a lot of different winemakers. And today's podcast episode is one such conversation.

In this conversation, I am speaking with Stefan Wellanschitz, a winemaker from the Mittelburgenland region of Austria.

I met Stefan when I was in my seminar week of the Masters of Wine stage one study program. I went to Austria, specifically to Rust. But on the last day of the study program, we were in Vienna, and we were given the opportunity to do a walk-around tasting at a very, very well-known wine store in central Vienna, right in the city, and it was with a bunch of natural wine makers, and this is where I met Stefan.

And we just kind of hit it off. I really loved his wines. He shared some knowledge with me, and then I reached out to him to see if he would be willing to talk to me further from Toronto, and he said yes.

So this is a conversation that happened very early in the morning here in Toronto. I'm, I think, a little under the weather. It's about February when this is happening. And you're going to find that it's a little bit more technical because the conversation was not necessarily intended for the podcast. It was an opportunity for me to learn what I need to know as a Master of Wine candidate. Notwithstanding, I think there's some excellent information in this podcast episode, and I think you're going to really enjoy it if you listen to it.

I also think if you can find Kolfok wines, especially the single vineyard, single variety wines, you'll really love those too. look out for those, and I hope you enjoy this podcast episode with Stefan. I'll flip over now and wish you all the best. Cheers!

An Introduction to Kolfok

Anshu: 

Let's start at the start. I would love to first hear a little bit about your winery and your background. I know that you have a long history making wines as a family in the Mittelburgenland in Austria. And that you favor natural wine-making practices.  

Stefan: 

Yeah, so, we have really long roots back, 100 years ago. My grandfather was doing wine, my grandgrandfather and so on and so on. So many, many generations are doing wine here in the Burgenland region in Mittelburgenland, Central Burgenland.

And yeah, the special thing about is, um, especially Neckenmarkt, the town is quite different to many others because we're at really one of the last part of the Alps. That's why we still have this, uh, Alpine soil, um, and also Alpine climate. It's on the west side of our town. On the east side, we're open to the Hungarian flatlands, the so-called Puszta, and that gives us a warm climate, and, yeah, it's, uh, always a, changing climate as well because we can get some rough

 [00:03:00] 

winds, almost storms coming from the west side.

And, those cool winds, they dry the vineyards, and that's just really perfect for natural wine-making, for organic wine-making. Also the huge variation of different soils is an interesting point because in the highest parts, uh, they are about 500 meter above sea level.

We can find schist, slate, or even granite. In the part in between,we also find some limestone, like really chalky stones. And in the lower parts, like 200 meter above sea level, we find this really heavy clay loam soil, sometimes mixed with volcanic stones, basalts, or even sandy stones as well.

Anshu: 

All of this diversity in terms of elevations and soils, you have all of that diversity in your own vineyards?

Stefan: 

Yes. Like within one town of Neckenmarkt. And also, we get a lot of south slopes, because, you know, back in the history, it was more common to plant just on south slopes to get as much ripeness as possible.

But nowadays we're also searching for cooler parts, like, even north slopes or terraces which are not exposed that much to the sun. And, uh yeah, we're searching for more shadier sites with more shadow, just to keep it more cooler and just to get more acidity as well. 

Anshu: 

What is the size of your land?

Stefan: 

For Kolfok, I use 15 hectares. And, uh, yeah, the thing about Kolfok is, um, I, I didn't mention that Kolfok, that's my winery name - it's something like a winery within a winery. I started this project a little bit more than 10 years ago, and I just wanted to show really rare and old vineyards and almost forgotten vineyard sites. And sometimes I recrafted them, sometimes I replanted them. 

Kolfok is from a local dialect. It describes a person who's not doing the things others expect from them, so something like a rebel, a misfit, and I think it's quite nice to use this word. And, it also describes my wines.

They're quite different to many others. And, um, I also started to plant, um, more white wine again because we used to be a more red wine region. A lot of things changed in the '90s and, um, I always thought it's quite sad that white wine was forgotten. I'm using quite traditional varieties, like old varieties.

They were here, like, Pinot Blanc or Welschriesling, even Furmint. I've also got some Gruner Veltliner, also got some mixed, uh, Muscat varieties. I think that that's really interesting because, you can really tell, oh, that's a white wine from Burgenland, and it's quite different to many other white wine styles of Austria.

The Wine Portfolio

Anshu: 

Now when we met in Vienna- Mm-hmm ... you 

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were there as a part of a small group of natural wine producers that were brought together so that we could explore the natural wine movement in Austria, and it was a fascinating tasting. I think that day you might have brought three or four of your wines, if I'm not mistaken.

But I've looked and I see that you have a huge portfolio of wines. You make quite- Oh, yeah. ... a large number. Yeah. So can you tell me a little bit about how many wines you make? And we don't have to go through each one, but I'm just curious. Does it change from year to year?  

Stefan: 

I think I have a total portfolio of about 12 wines right now. The wines I showed at Wine & Co., they were the single vineyard wines, also single variety wines. And, um, yeah, that's something quite, uh, personal for me, the wines I showed because it's like the highest range but I'm also doing kind of skin contact with the Intra series. "Intra" means intracellular fermentation, so it's like, um, maceration carbonique. For this method, um, I use quite, uh, fresh grapes, so they are harvested earlier from younger vines.

And, um, yeah, I try to, um, de-stem them, like, um, and after de-stemming to get, like, a full, um, berries, like, uh, whole berries. And those berries go into little fermenters, and, uh, in those little fermenters, without any pressure, without, uh, touching it, um, yeah, kind of fermentation is starting from inside the berry.

And, that takes about two weeks, and it's without oxidation, so it's a reductive way. And, after two weeks, they're pressed, and they almost look like popcorns, like they're really exploding. And that's like a really gentle method of skin contact because you got some little skin contact, but, uh, it's not super crazy like in other orange wines.

And yeah, I like this method, and, therefore I have three wines, a red, a rosé, and a white. And with this method I can get a wine in a really nice dimension. 

Anshu: 

So once the carbonic maceration is done, you then press off of the skins and ferment? 

Stefan: 

You're right. Then there's still residual sugar, and, uh, this residual sugar will then finish fermentation in, uh, bigger casks.

Anshu: 

That's for all three, the white, the rosé, and the red?

Stefan: 

Yes. Yes.

Anshu: 

So the red is fermented off its skins?

Stefan: 

As berries. It's not like, um, a mash. More like whole berries, and I really try to have, like, little fermenters so I can have as much intact berry as possible. 

The maceration carbonique for the red is less than the white. So the red is pressed after a week, and that's why it gets a nice color, but nothing dark. It's more like a really fresh, red wine. Lower alcohol, good acidity, and a really fresh style. Easy to drink and very balanced in tannins.

Anshu: 

And then how many cases of wine do you make across the winery?

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Stefan: For Kolfok, it's like 60,000 bottles now. 

Natural Winemaking Philosophy

Anshu: 

So I may ask you then a couple of questions around natural approaches. I know that you're part of the raw wine movement and your wines, I have to say, there's a lot of purity, they taste really, really clean and fresh and of high quality. One of the things that I think I am trying to understand and grapple with is the concept of not doing too much to the wines because you want ... them to taste of the terroir and your own philosophy. But then also the realities of nature and things going wrong in nature. 

Maybe we can start with the obvious, which is sulfur. If I remember correctly and my notes are correct, you didn't say, "I'm 0% sulfur." I think you said minimal sulfur when needed. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Stefan: 

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, the use of sulfur for my wines are just before bottling, but, uh, during the whole process, um, I don't use, uh, any sulfur because I try to keep it really clean and cold and I don't know, there are so many factors I can tell you.

For example, the reason I do maceration carbonique, like the intracellular fermentation, is the way that it's without oxidation. So I really try to keep oxidation out of the vinification, and that's why sometimes I also, uh, use like, uh, CO2, um, for example, during pressing because it's something, you know, um, you can add and it will disappear. 

It's gone and it's a nice way of protecting the juice, uh, or, uh, even the grapes. CO2 is also developing during fermentation. I don't rack the wines. I'm really curious about, uh, moving the wine, so, everything I do, um, is very gentle. Really, I try to touch the grapes as less as possible.

It should be really quick, so I do a early harvest. It has to be cold, that's really important. During the whole process, the grapes should be cold.For the single vineyard wines, like the Grüner Veltliner or the Furmint and so on, I just do a whole cluster press.

So they're coming in, they're lightly crushed before, um, pressing, but, uh, then they are pressed into juice, then quite cold, um, goes into barrels. And that's also an important thing. I just use local barrels, so Austrian oak. Sometimes, even from our own forests, our own oak, which is quite nice.

I was just in the forest three weeks ago, and it's a nice work, and it's something, you know, quite proud about it to have our own oak. Because, the forests are just close by to the vineyards, and sometimes you even have the same terroir like in the vineyards. The oak is growing quite slow and that's why the pores are quite thin. 

And, the casks, the oak is quite thick, so I use, like, 55 

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millimeters of oak thickness. And, uh, that's also an important reason why the wine always tends to be more reductive than on the oxidative side. Because if you have thick wood, the micro oxidation is less. And as soon as the juice or the wine is in the barrel, it stays in the barrel without any racking. So I stay on full lees. No batonnage. Because when the lees is down in the cask, it develops, like sulfuric, sulfur bites.

That's also a really important fact to know. You don't have to add sulfur. Uh, it's- It's made out of that ... in, in the wine by itself, uh, made by, by yeast, and that's why sometimes even supernatural wines have quite a high level of SO2.

But, uh, yeah. The thing is, as I mentioned, I just use sulfur once just before bottling and just to, to give this whole process the stress during bottling, and a nice impact. 

Anshu: 

So let me ask you something because to my understanding sulfur has two uses. One is in the presence of oxygen to prevent oxidation, and you've talked about how you try to work with as reductive an environment as possible and the different levers for that. But then as I've understood it, the other really important use of sulfur is antimicrobial, so to keep microbes from multiplying.

And that's where I'd love to understand your perspective because I've heard from many people who favor lower sulfur additions that it's all about the quality of the fruit. Mm-hmm. The fruit needs to come in, uh, healthy with- Yeah ... uh, no splitting, no rotting so that you can limit the microbial population.

Now I think when we go to the vineyard, you've talked about the fact that you always pick when it's cold and you keep the fruit cold. But I wonder what else your thoughts are around managing the microbial environment so you don't have that issue if you're not using sulfur through the wine-making process. 

Stefan: 

I mean, it's, it's all about cleanness. It's, it's really like, most of the work is just cleaning things and, uh, uh, keep, uh, things clean. So for example, if I have, um, um, barrel empty, I always try to, uh, refill it as soon as possible. 

And, uh, yeah, all of the wines, they are in barrels. Sometimes, um, not all of the time, sometimes I also have, like, stainless steel but, um, as soon as, um, I got some, um, um, empty barrels, the wine comes from the stainless steel into the barrel again. The whole treatment in the vineyard is quite often just done by hand.

We have our friends and workers who are doing the treatments in the vineyard. I'm quite lucky to be in this region because we get this really great lake of Neusiedl, and the humidity is quite higher.

That's why it's also quite good to have a sweet wine production because Botrytis pressure is 

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much higher. But we're separated from this lake. So there's one valley, the Oedenburger valley, the Sopron valley, and that separates our town from the lake, so that's why we don't have high humidity and we don't have pressure of getting fruits rotten.

There's also this other part, the western part, where the winds are always going through so it's quite a windy area as well. And sometimes, winds can get so rough that we have problems with the canopy because sometimes they're really falling apart.

But that's something I'm really lucky about because the treatment of fruits is quite lower than usual.

Anshu: 

Okay. Are you open to using sulfur in the vineyard, or no sulfur in the vineyard either?

Stefan: 

Oh, in the vineyard I do, yes.

Anshu: 

Okay. So that's helpful then in terms of controlling the microbes in the vineyard.

Yeast & Fermentation

Anshu: 

I'm assuming all of your fermentations are spontaneous with native yeast? Yes.  Okay. Do you ever inoculate for any of your wines? Do you ever put commercial yeast into your wines?

Stefan: 

No, I'm quite relaxed in the cellar. I also got some noises right now in the cellar, so they're still bubbling from last year.

But that's the thing. You always have to keep it clean. You always have to top the wines. That's something really important, and that's something I think winemakers should understand. It's not a laissez-faire method. You can't put juice in it and then say, " Whatever happens, there will be something." No. That's not my way of thinking. I learned how to get done with fermentation problems. So sometimes I added old yeast or lees from an older vintage to such barrels or sometimes you can even see it, during the whole process.

Some barrels are fermenting quite heavy and quite rough and other barrels are fermenting slower. So sometimes I add from the really strong fermentation parts to less fermentation parts and yeah….

Anshu: 

One of the things that's fascinating me, I've been learning about, is, I've been spending a lot of time looking at yeast actually.

Just last night I was studying about torulaspora and metz- Metschnikowia.. Yeah. it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So I understand that, you would have a population of yeast in the vineyard that's basically really based on your terroir and the condition of your fruit, and then you would also have a population in the winery based on all of the activity that's been taking place since your ancestors were making wine. I've spoken to some winemakers that say, "Because we've been making wine for so long, we have a very rich population of native yeast that work well just in our winery. And then we have great, robust cleaning processes, but we've almost naturally selected through natural selection we have the best yeasts that we can possibly have, that we want for the results- Yeah ... that we're looking for." 

I assume you believe the same, but one of the things that I've been learning about is the ability to even test what yeasts you actually 

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have in your vineyard. Have you ever done anything like that to try to understand what your population is, what you're working with? 

Stefan: 

Actually, I really did a study about that during school. So that was my main work for the diploma and, yeah, I really found out, as you recognized, it's really a mix of yeast coming from the vineyard and yeast coming from the cellar. In my work, I found out that yeast from the vineyard are starting the fermentation, but then the yeast from the cellar, from the whole atmosphere or even from the wood itself because, it's, like, like, such a complex organisms, these yeast from the cellar will finish fermentation.

So that's always the main part, the stronger part because- the yeast from the vineyard can easily... so the population of the yeast from the vineyard isn't that high than the yeast in the cellar because, I don't know, i- it can stay there and, yeah. And, as I, I told you before, I really try to have my casks always completely full.

Of course I do cleaning as well, with sometimes steam and high pressure, but I don't know, it's something I think in the atmosphere and it can't get destroyed by cleaning. So it always stays there.

Anshu: 

Yeah, and I think it's pretty cool actually. It's like us as humans, right? We're always carrying- Yeah ... bacteria and stuff on us, in our mouths, everything. Yeah. But my question to you is do you know what you actually have in your winery? Have you ever done any testing to determine, yes, I have this strain or I have that strain? Or do you just go with what you have?

Stefan: 

Oh, no, I, actually I don't know. They're all Saccharomyces cerevisiae of course, and sometimes, fermentation can also start with some other wilder, uh, yeasts as well. But, yeah, I think the wilder yeasts are coming from the vineyard. And, in my work I f- I found out that, the fermentation starts with wilder yeast.

That's why you also get some, more complex aromas, but then those yeasts die when they reach about 4% alcohol. 

Anshu: 

Yeah. Okay, so one of the things I've heard about with people who do native yeast fermentations and don't inoculate with commercial yeast at any stage is there's two risks.

One is the production of a lot of volatile acidity. And the second is the risk of stuck fermentations. Mm-hmm. I'd love to hear your perspective on how you manage both of those.

Stefan: 

The volatile acidity is quite in, in warmer years. For example, '24 was a warmer year, but- I don't know. I never had problems with volatile acidity, to be honest. The thing with the stuck fermentation is sometimes, the wine can even benefit from it because you always have a process going on.

That's why when the process is alwa- so the wine is always working, it would always 

[00:21:00] be on the reductive side and, while the wine is in fermentation or it can also do malolactic fermentation, it always produces CO2, and CO2 is again, antiseptic, in a good way. 

For me, it's not really a problem. I once had some little uh, Brettanomyces because that was in the beginning, but I really learned from it. Sometimes you can have, after the pressing, as I mentioned before, um, if you have skin contact before and then do pressing, and then with the residual sugar you go into barrels, um, sometimes, in this process, I don't know why, it's like skin contact, residual sugar, and oak barrels, it can produce Brettanomyces as well.

And sometimes in this stage I don't directly go into barrels. Instead of that I finish the fermentation in stainless steel because it's cleaner and Brettanomyces can't be activated.

 After fermentation is done in the stainless steel I go from the stainless steel, as a dry wine, into the barrels again.

Anshu: 

Okay. So you're restricting the residual sugar that the Brettanomyces could feed on?

Stefan: 

Yes. 

Anshu: 

Okay. And, to make that decision, so that's an in the field, in the moment decision that, okay, you know what? I think that this is an environment that could be problematic, and as you said, you learn from it....do you do testing to detect that there could be Brettanomyces? 

Stefan: 

Yeah, acidity and, pH is really important, so if I see, the acidity isn't that high or the pH is too high, I don't do risk and go directly into barrels. And it's also a thing of tasting. Sometimes you, you just smell the wine and then decide, oh, okay, here we go. I don't know. It’s sometimes coming from the belly. 

Anshu: 

Now I was going to ask you about malolactic fermentation, one of the favorite topics of everybody who's studying wine. Do all of your wines undergo malolactic fermentation? 

Yes. Yes. 

Because all, you just let it take place, right?

Stefan: 

Yes. Yes. So it's like a really long process. Sometimes shorter but, all of them are doing malolactic fermentation because, yeah, after that the wine is really stable. 

Anshu: 

Okay. So it sounds to me like some of your levers for success are no residual sugar, making sure that malolactic takes place, making sure you're working in a reductive environment so that oxygenation can't really take hold, but also microbes have less of an environment to thrive in. And then using a little bit of sulfur at bottling just to ensure stability as the wine goes to a different market. Okay. Okay, that makes sense to me. 

Additives & Intervention

Anshu: 

Now, you said you're a winery within a winery. Are you also the winemaker for your family wines?

Stefan: 

My uncle is doing the wines for my family. They're more on the red wine side, so they're producing more red wine and more for the national market. 

 They're also doing organic and they also develop, but, yeah, that's the 

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reason if you work with family everybody needs to have their own playground.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. It's something, yeah, you should really be curious about because, I don't know, I love my family, and we're doing a great job together, and, uh, there's always interaction. But I'm also glad to do my own things now and I think it's something generations have to develop and do new things and so on.

And, yeah, I just try to also show my family what's possible.

Anshu: 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Stefan: 

My friends are in the wine business and it's like a really a small community you can tell. And, I like to drink wines.

I also like to compare my wines with other wines, and it's always a process going on, and that's really important. And, I might have some idols as well, and it's like the way they think about wine and, uh, the way they are doing wine, I also want to do it like that.

I like to drink, for example, Burgundian white and reds and so on. I also was at internships all over the world and you can catch a lot of things from other people, from other winemakers.

And then you go back to your family winery and then you start to doing the same things or, just to, to, to have an idea of things going on and, yeah. That's how everything developed. And, I really saw that there's not that much necessary to produce really great wine.

I think it's really in the other way. So if you're really producing high, high quality level and you're putting a lot of personality in it, you don't need much more than really good fruits from a good terroir.

Anshu: 

Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating! 

Cellar & Terroir

Anshu: 

What about temperature control. What do you think about that? 

Stefan: 

We have quite an old cellar, so it's within, um, um, a mountain. So not mountain, but, um- Like underground ... it's, it's, it's underground. It's like, almost 10 meters beneath by clay soil. So, the winery is directly in the center of the town of Neckenmarkt, and that's why you have this really heavy clay soil in the center because the center is about 200 meters above sea level.

And yeah, clay is always cool so it can keep the whole atmosphere quite cool. So I have a stable temperature of about 10 to 15 degree Celsius. 

Anshu: 

All your winemaking is underground 10 meters below-

Stefan: 

Yes. I have several steps. So the production hole is on top, then there's the press, and then there's the cellar.

 I can really go, step by step. 

I do use sometimes pumps, but, usually I try to avoid them because-

Anshu: 

Okay. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, 'cause I thought I read that you press the grapes but then you don't pump them, you don't pump the juice out of the press. 

Stefan: 

No, that's not necessary because I can directly go from the press into the barrels by gravity because the 

[00:27:00] press is in the middle stage, like in the middle center. And then from there I can go directly from the press without pumping into the barrels.

But sometimes, for example, for bottling and so on, I do use a press to be honest. You use the pump. - Not always. Sometimes, I just use a forklift and, with the forklift you can also put barrels on another level, and then by gravity again.

Anshu:

Wow, into the bottling line. 

Stefan:

Yes. so into the bottling or in stainless steel and then into the bottling, into the bottling line.

Anshu: Okay. Wow, fascinating. 

Would you remind me, let's go back to the start here. So all of your wines are made with whole berries and whole clusters?

Stefan: 

Whole cluster. Yeah, sometimes I also de-stem. For the "Intra" line or the red wines, I do de-stemming. 

Anshu:

But you still do whole berry all the time? 

Stefan:

Whole berry. 

Anshu:

Without crush. 

Stefan:

Yes. Without crush. 

Anshu:

So all of your wines are either whole cluster or whole berry?

Stefan:

Yes. 

Anshu:

No crushed fruit? 

Stefan:

No. 

Anshu:

Okay. And so for that reason, your press program wouldn't be, like, you don't need to have a big r- press program because at the end of the day you're only gonna apply so much pressure anyways. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, you can tell. Yeah. In the fermentation you want more intact berries. Is that right?

Stefan: 

Yes, definitely. I don't know, more fruit and the intact berries. It's always, if you have intact berries and not crushed berries, you don't have that much lees and, yeah, I try to avoid too much lees. So there shouldn't be too much fine particles because I'm not racking, you know?

Anshu:

Right. Okay. But, It's all making sense now. Okay. You're not racking.

Stefan:

If you get a- You don't... Yeah, you want- Yeah, like 10, 10, 10% of lees, then, wine can get really reductive, like almost stinky, yeasty notes. Yeah.

Anshu: Okay. Okay. It's slowly coming together in my mind. Yeah. I appreciate your patience.

I'm trying to put the puzzle together as I'm listening to you. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And also, do you find by working with as close to whole berries as possible, so either minimally crushed or full whole berries across your whole program- ... do you find that also gives you more purity of fruit?

Do you find that it affects the flavor of the wine as well? Yeah. Or is it more for the, as you said, more to ensure there's not as much sediment?

Stefan: 

Yes, not as much sediments. And I'm also really curious about extraction. So I do have low yields, so sometimes really crazy low yields of 2,000 kilos per hectare or something like that.

And, those grapes or those berries are really intense, like they have thick skin and if you do too much extraction you will get- a hell out of tannins And that's why I'm really slow and I'm really gentle by touching the grapes, by touching the berries because sometimes, you really have 

[00:30:00] 

tiny berries.

it's I, I can show you pictures later, as well, but, they are really intense. And I don't know, it's if you, try to taste them, it's like really have to bite through the skin because the skin usually for all of my wines is quite thick. 

Anshu:

And what do you attribute the really low yields to? Is it the age of the vines? Is it the soil?

Stefan: 

Age of the vines, the soil, the whole management. um, all of the vineyards are planted with herbs. I do, every two or three years I also add some herbs. um, but yeah, it's really important for me that the vines have to fight for nutritions because then you will always get the nicest fruits.

If you have too much grownness going on, then you have to do a green harvest as well. That's something, for example, I don't do. I don't do any green harvest because I don't have that much fruit. But, yeah, I do have old vines, sometimes even almost 100 years old. And for the young vines, I do a different kind of planting.

I do a double vine planting, so there are two vines on- 

Anshu: 

I remember! You even shared a picture with me! We matched our phones-... and you had the double trunk. Tell us about that. 

Stefan: 

I got an, a old vineyard of Welschriesling, it was planted in the '80s, and it, it was an experiment for, another wine maker and I bought this vineyard from him, and he tried to have a higher yield by planting double vines, but the complete opposite was happening because he got less yield, because the two vines, they really had to fight for, the nutritions or also for the water.

So the result was growing was quite less. The canopy, the green parts, they will not reach the highest wire on those vineyards. And you get really intense fruits because there are less fruits on it and the plant can really concentrate on those less fruits and produce more intense aromatic like a natural concentration. 

Anshu: 

It's a natural blessing in a way! 

Actually double trunking or double planting is also a thing in colder environments. I was speaking to somebody who grows fruit in Washington, for example, where the winters- Sure ... can be severe, and so they actually do double trunks for an insurance policy in case one side doesn't do well through the winter, you have the other side.

Yeah. And I remembered our conversation, and I still remember you had the picture on your phone. You said, "I'll show you and you can have..." And I said, "Could I have the picture? I've never seen that before." 

I'm sure you do a lot of work on the soils as well in your vineyard, but making sure that there's good cover crops, there's good competition and older vines that are healthy will naturally yield lower fruit.

I guess maybe another question that I may ask you around the vineyard then is for climate change.

So you mentioned that you're now seeking cooler sites, maybe more shade- or high elevations, because climate change is real, and you want freshness in your fruit. What I've understood, again, and I can, I'm 

[00:33:00] 

still learning, so I could be making mistakes, but when you have cover crops and there's competition for nutrients, there's also competition for water.

So in this era of climate change where maybe there may not be as much water available in the vineyard, how do you feel about that? So if you've got cover crops all in your vineyard, does that create a lot of competition in warm, dry years for your fruit?

Stefan: 

Yeah, sometime it's quite rough. And you have to do something. For example, I'm just thinking about the vineyard where I almost had no yield, uh, last time, and that's where I have to act. So that's where I have to add some compost, maybe also open every second row.

But think it's much easier to understand climate change by doing natural or organic wines because we're already doing our work with it because we're searching for cooler sites and, um, yeah, it's something, I think, with organic working, climate change can be done much easier. 

Anshu:

So in the instance you were thinking of where you had that rough summer, you almost had no yield in one of your vineyards, do you irrigate your vines? Are you willing to apply water? 

Stefan: 

No. 

Anshu:

No, so it's all dry farmed. Do you use anything like shading nets, or sunscreen- No ... or anything like that to help the vines?

Stefan: 

No, no shading. It's really…. it's also a thing about varieties.

For example, for south sides, I just use late ripened varieties nowadays, and that was not always common. But for example, late ripening varieties like Welschriesling or a Furmint or a Blaufränkisch, they're really great on south sides, and they can really handle more sun and more heat.

Then you have, for example, Burgundian varieties or Gruner Veltliner or early varieties like Muscat, you can't plant that on such soils. So that's a thing where climate change really hits you. So it's not possible to grow Gruner Veltliner, on south sides and slate soil, for example.

It will burn, and it will not grow very well. So for such varieties, I'm looking for much colder vineyards, like on limestone, for example, or clay loam. And, if I do have colder sides on slate or granite, I can plant Burgundian varieties as well. But, yeah, nowadays, it's...

and, you know, that's also a really interesting thing about Furmint because for a really long time, Furmint was planted but not as a single variety vineyard because, uh, it would not get ripe. So back in the days, like my grandfather, he always had a mixed vineyard with Furmint because Furmint always brought some nice acidity.

But, he was not able to plant a single vineyard Furmint because it wouldn't get ripe. And now with climate change, varieties like Furmint 

[00:36:00] 

are totally fine, so that's really a variety for the future.

Also with uh, Welschriesling. People had Furmint or Welschriesling for sweet wine production. Nowadays we can produce dry wines with it.

Anshu: 

So as you're looking at climate change and you have acquired your 15 hectares from- ... different farmers over the years- how many years have you been making Kolfok now? 

Stefan: 

Uh, since 2015.

Anshu: 

Okay, so let's say the last 10 years you've been acquiring vineyards. So I assume in some instances you discovered that what was planted was not the best planting- Yes ... and needed to be changed. Yes. So in those cases, did you graft over on the existing vines? So did you graft in the field with budding in a new variety? Yes. Or did you rip the vines out and plant new?

Stefan: 

Sometimes like that. So for example, we had some Zweigelt on a south slope on slate or granite, and yeah, it was not working because it was too hot, and now I regrafted Welschriesling there. And also with another vineyard for example, on a really cold side, it was a north slope and limestone and quite windy, we had Cabernet Sauvignon .

I guess people were trying a lot of crazy things, but now I planted Pinot Blanc there because it makes more sense and it makes me more happy because I'm searching for cooler sites, but not for a Cabernet Sauvignon. 

Anshu:

Okay. How do you make the decision between in-field chip budding to graft over to a new variety versus let's rip this out and just put new stuff in? How do you make that decision? 

Stefan: 

Yeah, to be honest, they shouldn't be too old. So I don't know, um, to have a high result, like 90% chance of growing or, grafting, you need to have 20-year-old vines. The Zweigelt was about 20 years old when I regrafted it. You can do it with old vines as well, but you will not have a high rate of success… 

Anshu:

Success, yeah. Okay. 

[END]