Kolfok

In local dialect, a Kolfok is a person who defies convention. Stefan Wellanschitz takes non-intervention to new heights: not just minimal intervention for him; his aim is not to be a wine maker, but a wine spectator. "Wein der geworden nicht gemacht": wine that, almost biblically, has become, not been made.

Neckenmarkt, in the middle of the Ödenburg Mountains on the Hungarian border, has its highest vineyards at almost 500 meters above sea level and is one of the highest vineyards in Burgenland. In these foothills of the Eastern Alps, the geology varies from mica slate to orthogneiss to shell limestone. Until the 1980s, 50% of the vineyard area consisted of white wine varieties. The essential idea of Kolfok is to draw on the long history of white wine: to revive Neckenmarkt and from the few old Welschriesling, Grüner Veltliner and Weisser Burgunder vines that remain, to create wines that unmistakably transmit their origin.