Gut Oggau Josephine Rot 2022

Eduard Tscheppe and Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck founded Gut Oggau in 2007 after purchasing an abandoned 17th-century winery in the village of Oggau. Eduard came from a conventional winemaking family in Styria; Stephanie's family owned and operated Taubenkobel, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Burgenland. Their paths crossed at a wine fair in Vienna in 2005—love at first sight, they say, over a shared bottle.

The estate's two decades of neglect before their arrival proved fortunate: all pesticides and chemical residues had washed from the soils, allowing immediate conversion to biodynamic farming. Today, Gut Oggau holds full Demeter certification across approximately 26 hectares of vineyards. The couple restored the property meticulously, including a 200-year-old vertical screw press still used for certain wines.

In the cellar, Eduard and Stephanie noticed that wines from different parcels possessed distinct personalities. Rather than suppress these differences through blending, they chose to celebrate them. Working with artist Jung von Matt, they created a fictional family: each wine bears a portrait and name representing its character. The children (Theodora, Atanasius, Winifred) come from younger vines on gravel and limestone, producing lighter, more energetic wines. The parents (Josephine, Joschuari, Emmeram, Timotheus) derive from sun-exposed sites with greater ripeness and body. The grandparents (Mechthild, Bertholdi) represent the estate's oldest vines, yielding the most structured and age-worthy cuvées.

Josephine holds a unique position: she's the only female red in the family. Her blend of Roesler (a cross of Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch developed in the 1960s, found almost exclusively in Burgenland) with Blaufränkisch produces a wine that balances warmth with freshness, body with finesse.

Discover more from Gut Oggau: Joschuari Rot, Bertholdi Rot, Timotheus Weiss, Theodora Weiss, Winifred Rosé. Browse best-selling natural wines.

Burgenland occupies Austria's eastern edge, stretching along the Hungarian border in the Pannonian Plain. This is Austria's second-largest wine region, covering approximately 32,200 acres of vineyards, and its warmest—conditions that favor red grape production more than anywhere else in the country. Lake Neusiedl (Neusiedler See), one of Europe's largest steppe lakes, dominates the landscape and moderates the climate, creating a unique microclimate where warm Hungarian air meets cooler Alpine breezes from the west.

The region divides into four distinct DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus) zones. Leithaberg in the north sits on ancient soils with pronounced minerality. Mittelburgenland to the south specializes in Blaufränkisch and has earned recognition as Austria's premier red wine zone. Neusiedlersee along the lake is known for both dry wines and the botrytized sweet wines that develop in the humid lakeside conditions. Eisenberg in the southeast produces structured, tannic Blaufränkisch from iron-rich soils.

The village of Oggau lies on the western shore of Lake Neusiedl, historically considered one of the first places in Austria to cultivate red grapes. Soils here combine gravel and limestone, well-drained and mineral-rich, imparting freshness and structure to wines that might otherwise become heavy in such a warm climate. The Pannonian climate—hot continental with significant diurnal temperature variation—extends the growing season while preserving acidity in the grapes.

Natural and biodynamic winemaking has flourished in Burgenland, with producers like Gut Oggau, Claus Preisinger, and Meinklang demonstrating the region's potential for minimal intervention viticulture. Indigenous varieties including Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt, and St. Laurent thrive alongside hybrid varieties like Roesler.

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