Nature – Weingut Ignaz Niedrist

Feeling, thinking, understanding

Today, agriculture must reconcile environmental protection, high biodiversity and the conservation of natural resources with economic operation. This applies not least to smaller family farms: economic interests must be compatible with ecological requirements.

We work consciously that we are responsible for our environment. This entails acting with the greatest respect for nature every single day – revering our soil, plants, animals and our peers.
In particular, this means creating a home for bees, ants, butterflies, insects, worms and birds. And above it is a matter of the “invisible”, the microorganisms. They breathe life into our grounds.

Biodiversity is created by disrupting monocultures, sowing flowers, cereals, spice plants and clovers. They enrich our vineyards, are profoundly rooted whilst loosening the soil and mobilising nutrients. Revegetation means revitalisation of the soil and ultimately strengthening of the plants’ own defence mechanisms.

Revitalisation is further also possible through professional composting. Earthworms transform cow dung combined with straw, rock flour and grape pomace into extremely nutrient-rich humus over at least two years, which can then be used as fertiliser. It is not a perfect circular economy such as our ancestors’, but it still closes a circle. A small one.

Less is more

Healthy, timely picked, and manually selected grapes add the characteristics of the site and the particularities of the vintage to each bottle.

We attend to our wines in the cellar, without altering them and intervening into the natural processes to the smallest extent. Naturally, this implies renouncing chemical additives.
On the other hand, we attach great importance to continuous contact between the young wines and their yeasts: Battonâge and lees ageing create complexity and are the foundation for natural stability. Thereby, we attain wines with long-lasting harmony.