Claus Preisinger "Puszta Libre!" 2023

"Puszta Libre!" is a juicy, Beaujolais-style Austrian chillable red blend made made from 60% Zweigelt, 20% St. Laurent and 20% Pinot Noir from various sites across predominately gravel soils. Full of bright, juicy red cherries with a hint of clove and black pepper, and an intriguing, green pepper, vegetal touch, which adds complexity and a slight nice bitterness. Extremely drinkable -- chill it down and chill out.

In a homage to the quaffable Gamay style wines from France, it undergoes spontaneous fermentation with some carbonic maceration. So smooth, so juicy, so fruit forward with it's forest fruit touches, but also with a touch more minerality, whilst still being fantastic glou-glou.

Sourced from several certified biodynamic vineyards around Lake Neusiedlersee, close to the Hungarian border and the UNESCO world heritage site known as Puszta, an outstanding example of a cultural landscape which preserves intact and visible evidence of its traditional pastoral use over more than two millennia and represents the harmonious interaction between people and nature. The Puszta consists of vast plains where specific land-use practices such as animal husbandry, including grazing of hardy livestock breeds adapted to the natural conditions of alkaline pastures, steppes, meadows and wetlands. The vines are 25 years old and planted on limestone soils.

A surfer at heart, Claus Preisinger has been making wine on the north shore of Lake Neusiedl in the Burgenland town of Gols since 2002. He converted the vineyards and winery to biodynamic production in 2006, and is Respekt Biodyn certified.

The bottle shape is itself iconic, as the Alsace-style bottles are not usually used in Burgenland, Austria, and certainly not with the label so high up. However, Claus Preisinger chose to use these because his father actually used to produce bottled wines like this, which also had a label on the top of the neck.