euro trip: destination central europe 🇩🇪🇦🇹🇭🇺

this winery was founded by three siblings of the family schödl – mathias, viktoria and leonard – all with a heart and love for wine, the dedication to nature and it‘s power and honest craftsmanship to bring pure and genuine wine into the bottle. there are not many natural producers in weinviertel, so the family schödl definitely stand out! this 100% gruner veltliner (‘green grape’) is dry, fresh, crisp and zippy.

rising start peter leipold worked for the german winemaking icon peter keller for a few years before striking out on his own, and keller, who doesn’t readily offer praise, thinks peter is on the way to becoming a young genius...’ he has a special feeling for wine, something you don't learn at school’.  located franken which is in the northern part of bavaria, peter focuses on pinot noir, riesling and silvaner . this 100% silvaner is electric, mineral driven and precise with orchard and citrus fruits.

in somló, a small area in western hungary dominated by a dormant volcano, the most important grape is juhfark (named after the shape of a sheep’s tail), which is eminently suited to the volcanic soils. somlo's slopes of ancient sea sediment, hardened lava, and basalt, along with the springs of mineral water that crisscross underground, imbue its wines with the signature taste of volcanic salt and smoke. fekete bela ‘the grand old man of somolo’ hand harvests the grapes and ages the wine for two years in large hungarian oak casks. the wine is full bodied but bright, with herbaceous, mineral, savory and honey notes and underlying juicy tree fruit flavors. 

stefan steinmetz is a 5th generation winemaker at this estate, which started as a butcher, inn, guesthouse and farm in addition to a winery. he took over from his father at the age of 22 in 2000, and now runs the estate with his wife, sammie steinmetz, an american who, to her knowledge, is the sole black woman working in wine in the mosel. they practice ‘natural viticulture’ using no fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides and controlling yields and carefully harvesting and sorting by hand. same in the cellar – spontaneous fermentation and no additives of any kind. as stefan explains, his wines ‘should reflect the location, the soil, the microclimate and the characteristics of the vines, i.e. all the peculiarities of the environment in which they are grown’.  this charming pinot noir is light with vibrant acidity, crushed red fruit and some forest floor and herbal notes.