There’s a buoyant, joyful quality to this Austrian red that just makes you feel good. It’s simply amazing to get a biodynamic, hand-crafted wine of this quality at this price.

The Achs vineyards, encompassing 25 hectares broken into 40 different plots, are in and around the village of Gols, in the Neusiedlersee district of Austria’s Burgenland region, 60 kilometers southeast of Vienna near the Hungarian border. The vineyard source for this wine is called “Heideboden” and is characterized by gravelly black soil mixed with loamy sand.

Achs harvests the grapes is successive passes (in 2021, picking began during the second week of September and continued through October 8th). Fermentation was carried out in stainless steel tanks, with 17 days of maceration on skins, after which the finished wine aged for eight months in 850-gallon wooden casks.

Paul Achs is a founding member of Respekt, an association of biodynamic vintners, and he was named 1994 “Vintner of the Year” by the Austrian magazine Falstaff. After a period of travel that included a winemaking stint in California, Achs returned to his family’s farm in Gols and shifted it from mostly white wine production to 90% red.

Aromas of black and purple woodland berries, violets, black pepper, juniper, and crushed stones. The texture is at once pleasingly plump and refreshingly tangy, melding fruit and mineral sensations seamlessly. Open and aerate 15-30 minutes before serving in Bordeaux stems at 55-60 degrees and enjoy it with an old-fashioned “mixed grill” of sausages, ribs, chops, etc.