Keeping it real in the Kamptal - A visit to the Kurt Angerer winery

Kamptal, really?

We arrive at Kurt Angerer's and ask: "Where is the Kamp? The Kamp is a kind of star, a bit like Tom Selleck. Floods (2002), dams everywhere, talk of "extreme runoff events" - so where is he, the Kamp , the river with a mustache and a Hawaiian shirt?

Wine region named after river valley - when this formula appears, we are literally triggered. “MAN!” We'll probably hear right away that the river creates a unique microclimate, truly unique, that only exists here and that's why they make the best Grüner Veltliner ever. The sun reflects off the river in the vineyard at an angle of 27 degrees, illuminating the ripening grapes from below! Hardly likely.

Because the Kamp flows past Langenlois on its way south to the Danube, and Langenlois is seven kilometers away from us here in Lengenfeld. It can't be the case that the fight makes the wine, right? In Lengenfeld there is the Lengenfelder Bach. How about that? Does the Lengenfelder give us the River Dance?

We turn up at Kurt Angerer's and ask: "Where is Kurt?" We wanted so much to be able to tease him. "Tell me Kurt, why don't you make organic wine?" But Kurt is gone. Pour his wine somewhere. He would have said what he said the other day. "You know that I don't spread dirt in the vineyard." We actually know that.

We stand in the yard and load our cart with wine and try not to get run over. Things are very down-to-earth here. Unlike the spaced-out biodynamicists. If we only managed such wineries, we would somehow be untrustworthy. When Kurt appeared at the ramp to unload our first order 22 years ago, we were amazed. He had driven ten hours to bring us his wine. He was on his way, he said. Personal ecology. Now we're charging at his place ourselves because we're on the way home.

We ask Simone about the vineyards and are overwhelmed by an avalanche of information that would be pointless to repeat here. Does the river make the wine? Not really. Does the soil make the wine? Hard to say. Kurt makes the wine! Yes it is. There are three milk tankers on the farm, around which a lot has grown. He told us about these tanks decades ago. He uses them as fermentation tanks, as a stopgap measure. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Grüner Veltliner is so creamy and profound. The horizontal tanks offer more contact surface between the fine yeast and the wine.

In the last week of August, before the harvest, we stay an hour longer and eat a snack. We would love to stay longer, but we have to head home.