If you know one thing about Austria’s Burgenland, it’s probably Lake Neusiedl and how it’s so damn big and so damn shallow, yadda, yadda, yadda…
In fact, as you’ve maybe been told, it’s so shallow that you can walk across the whole thing, all 120 square miles, and never get your chin wet – max depth is about five feet and most of the time it’s between two and three feet deep.
Frankly, it seems like the big story here throughout a lot of modern wine-time was the fog and the mist because of this shallow lake, and the resulting botrytis and sweet wines. Some real famous and real expensive sweet wines came from here, though for a lot of people, this is where the coherent narrative ends.
And that’s fair enough, because since then, well, Burgenland has laid claim to just about everything.
First came Heidi Schröck showing that you could make dry aromatic wines of clarity and balance in this place. There were the Velich brothers showing you could make dry, rich wines; then Roland went out on his own and dropped the mic with Blaufränkisch of unparalleled classicism and depth. Then, as the wine world went natty, Austria became almost overnight the eastern front for the movement; the Loire of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Austria – and I write this with a deep sense of love and affection, my father was Austrian and my family, his family, still lives there – is quick to digest the Zeitgeist and turn it into something polished and profitable. So while they have been quick to master, well, everything… often times the most meaningful journeys are the longer ones.
And so we come to Joiseph; a new-ish estate founded in 2015 by three friends (Luka Zeichmann, Richard Artner and Xandl Kagl). It started with a tiny vineyard in the village of Jois (thus the name, a playful personification of the village). Joiseph has grown quietly, slowly, and it has quietly become the talk of Burgenland. They produced only miniscule amounts of wine in 2015 (with only about a hectare under vine); it was mostly drank by other Austrian winemakers and people started talking. Here is an estate with elements of nearly everything the Burgenland has offered: aromatic complexity, stature and polish, clarity, as well as a buoyant energy, a certain soil-focus. And while the wines seem to have a card from every deck, they also have an ace: lightness. The wines are, hands down, the most ethereal, delicate wines I’ve ever had from the Burgenland. They are ravishing.
In the past few vintages they have become one of the most famous unknown estates; the most coveted winery in Austria that very few people have heard of. This is an estate that could probably sell everything it makes just to other winemakers in Burgenland.
There is nothing terribly hip about the winery, no cutting-edge design or marketing gimmicks. Just heart-wrenchingly beautiful, delicious wines.
Then again, that’s more than enough.
