I’ll be honest, I couldn’t pass up the cute little cow on this label. I was shopping for wines to drink along with the Society of Wine Educators virtual conference that took place in August of this year. This wine was a good choice for several of the sessions: sparkling wine, Germany/Austria, rosé, and climate change since this wine is Demeter certified. Somehow I ended up opening for the session on Tuscany. Wait, what? I know, I know, that makes no sense. But it was the last session and it was Friday afternoon.

Hailing from Osterreich, in the Burgunland region of Austria, it is produced by Meinklang a fully sustainable, family run farm and winery. As stated on the label, the cows are a huge part of the sustainable ecosystem, providing compost for the vines. The commitment to sustainable practices doesn’t end there though, the vines grow happily with the various types of clover, grasses and other beneficial plants, not as off season cover crops, but during the growing season as well. The horses, pigs and chickens are considered employees of the farm, all contributing to the symbiotic biodynamic beauty.

The blend of grapes for this wine is Pinot Noir (Spatburgunder), Zweigelt, and Blaufrankisch. How about this color? It’s nearly neon. I couldn’t stop looking at it. The ABV comes in at a very modest 10.5%, making it a perfect wine to sip all by itself. It has 8.9 g/l of residual sugar, coming in on the top end of the dry category, but certainly comes off as dry, well balanced with great acidity and soft effervescence.

That crown cap closure might have you thinking pet nat, but the wine is fermented in stainless steel, with the effervescence added via the charmat method (closed tank). This doesn’t matter one bit in terms of enjoyability but it would be easy to confuse if you were specifically in the market for pet nat.

The website calls the wine – “Juicy and uncomplicated, prose stands for fluid affirmation of life and carefree drinking fun without losing any seriousness.” I really can’t say it much better than that.

I ended up having this gorgeous salad with peach vinaigrette and goat cheese croutons with this wine. It was so gut!