It’s a rainy September day in Sooß (or Sooss, pronounced su:s), a small commune in Austria’s Thermenregion, just an hour drive from Vienna. We aren’t picking any grapes today although they seem to be perfectly ripe: the rainwater is dripping off the red and white berries in Christian’s top vineyard of Gradenthal.

Anyone who breaks another person’s vine shall pay 12 pfennigs for each one.
– the rules of the Sooß commune, circa 1550

We are hanging out with Christian Fischer, one of the pioneers of red and Ried winemaking in the region—his first Pinot Noir was born in 1982. The winery itself is hidden in one of the inconspicuous buildings in a quiet village with breathtaking views on hilly vineyards. It’s not exactly steep, but enough to remind the gentle slopes of Chablis in Burgundy. Unlike Chablis, the mixture of white and red grapes in Thermenregion is basically even (still, 57% whites, 43% reds).

Sooß: the true wine village 

Sooß may look like a quiet Thermenregion wine village today, but a few centuries ago, it was a place where one grape could cost you an ear. Back in 1355, anyone who stole a grape could lose an ear, two grapes both ears, and three grapes earned a visit to the judge—preferably before he ran out of body parts to dispose of. Even the “vineyard guards”, the noble defenders of the harvest, weren’t spared: if caught sneaking grapes home, they faced fines and severe public shame. Should the loot exceed twelve clusters, the case went straight to court.

The discipline makes sense when you realize how sacred vines were here. The soils around Sooß were already famous long before anyone could spell Pinot Noir. Archaeologists proved it in 1927, when they unearthed a Roman burial on the slope once called Sooßerberg—now known, fittingly, as Römerberg. The grave held a skeleton and a small iron blade, later romanticized as a vintner’s knife. Whether it really was or not, the story stuck. Locals like to imagine that the man was an early grape grower buried beside the Roman road to Baden, resting for eternity with his pruning tool and a view of the vineyards.

Fast-forward a millennium or so, and another Fischer—Leopold—was shaping modern Sooß. Born here in 1903, he grew vines, studied in Gumpoldskirchen, and eventually swapped his pruning shears for parliament speeches. As mayor and later a member of Austria’s Nationalrat, he pushed for rural development, viticultural reform, and infrastructure that still benefit the region today. His grandson Christian Fischer would later take the family name back to its roots—literally—building one of the Thermenregion’s most respected wineries on the same soils that Leopold once defended in politics.

I’m against wine conversations without tastings: Christian takes me straight to the cellar to indoctrinate about the barrels and the Sooß varieties. One after another we sip samples of Zierfandler, Rotgipfler Orange, Zweigelt and the Ried Gradenthal 2018. What immediately strikes me is the great condition of these fine liquids and the absence of rough edges both in younger and older ones.

When I ask Christian about his favorite wine region besides his own, Burgundy is immediately brought up. For his father, wine was the most important thing — as well as for his Heuriger, a typical local restaurant where some cold cuts and local wine can be served and which his father also owned.

It was 1982 when Christian Fischer started his own wine career amongst the family vines. His fascination with quality barrel became obvious by 1985, ten years before Austria joined the EU, which made buying barrels much easier. Christian recalls that time pouring me a barrel sample of his dark, ruby-garnet Zweigelt, the grape that contributes around 50% of the Fischer’s total production: “In the 1970s and 80s people drank a lot of wine, but quality was not the first priority. When I took over, I wanted to make the wines in my own way. I started working with barrels—that was something new for this area, it wasn’t easy to buy them in Austria. I remember starting with just two barriques that I managed to buy from an Austrian cooper.”

Inside the Fischer’s barrel cellar

The heart of Christian Fischer’s winery beats in his barrel room—a calm, dimly lit chamber where the air and the temperature move slowly in unison. “It’s not completely constant,” Christian says. “It makes a soft curve—about fifteen degrees in winter, twenty in summer.” For Fischer, that gentle rhythm is ideal. “Red wines need a bit of warmth to breathe. Bottled wines prefer it cooler, but here the living ones are still working.”

The cellar holds an intriguing patchwork of barrels: elegant French barriques beside broad-shouldered Austrian casks, some young and golden, others darkened by decades of service. The range spans from 225-liter French oak for the concentrated reds to 500-liter casks for Rotgipfler and Chardonnay, and a few towering 3,000-liter Austrian vats for the Classic wines. The whites age in softly toasted barrels, the reds in deeper, medium-plus oak. “I like to mix new and used casks,” Fischer says. “It gives balance—power, but not too much perfume.”

To freshen up the barrel park, a cooper comes in every decade to work on the inside of the old giants, getting them ready for another round of vintages. Fischer grins, patting one of the massive barrels: “That’s why they’re so thick—fifty millimeters of wood. It’s like getting a new skin every ten years.”

In here, there’s a special focus on local varieties Zierfandler and Rotgipfler, a tough job for one’s brain and mouth, but a great attraction for tastebuds. For those unable to learn the presence of Gruner Veltliner and Chardonnay will make life easier. And those local reds are largely dominated by Zweigelt, St Laurent and, the King, Pinot Noir.

By the mid-1980s, Fischer was experimenting with barrels and international varieties, years before such ideas were fashionable in Austria. “In those days, everyone was planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot,” he says. “The dream was Bordeaux. We thought we could make the big wines of the world right here.” He smiles at the memory, half-proud, half-wry. “But twenty years later we realized—we must go our own way. You can’t make Bordeaux in Austria. If you want Bordeaux, you go to Bordeaux.”

That realisation marked a quiet turning point. Fischer began to look back toward the soils and the grapes that had shaped the Thermenregion for centuries: Zweigelt, St. Laurent, Rotgipfler, and Zierfandler, alongside his long-time love, Pinot Noir. The latter became his personal crusade.

In 1982, when he vinified his first Pinot, the available plant material in Austria came from South Tyrol. “Also good,” he concedes, “but the berries were too big, the clusters too loose. The wine was lighter, simpler.” Then Austria joined the European Union in 1995, and suddenly the borders opened—not only for trade, but for rootstocks. “That was a golden time,” Fischer says. “We could finally buy original Burgundian clones. The grapes were smaller, tighter, the skins thinner. The quality was completely different.” He replanted key parcels, gradually reshaping the style of his Pinot Noir toward what he calls “the Austrian answer to Burgundy—elegance, but with limestone in the bones.”

He didn’t abandon Cabernet and Merlot completely, though. In the cooler 1980s, those grapes often struggled to ripen, but as the climate warmed, they found their footing. Today he sources his Vom Muschelkalk Reserve, a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Zweigelt from limestone soils. “The climate changed,” Fischer says. “Now it fits better. We have more time for ripeness.” Curiously, for a long time Fischer has been taking some of his Cabernet Franc grapes for Merlot.

Meanwhile, his whites became another frontier for rediscovery. The native Rotgipfler and Zierfandler—two grapes found almost nowhere outside the Thermenregion—returned to prominence in his vineyards on Römerberg. Rotgipfler, in particular, he now calls “the Austrian answer to Chardonnay—ripe, generous, but never tropical.” He even makes a small-batch orange version from the same grape, skin-fermented and aged in oak.

Across these decades, Fischer’s plantings evolved from imitation to conviction. He started with the cosmopolitan palette of the 1980s, but gradually pared it down to what truly belonged in his landscape: limestone, small berries, and a certain Central European restraint.

The path to organic farming

There’s a tale that every Soosser knows—the death of the last phylloxera. When the tiny root-louse finally surrendered its claim on the vineyards at the dawn of the 20th century, the locals decided it deserved a ceremonial end. They caught the final specimen, dropped it into a barrel of wine and buried that in the foundation of the famous Lausturm tower (erected by no less than Robert Schlumberger), and drowned it with due solemnity (and perhaps a toast or two).

Christian Fischer didn’t convert to organic viticulture out of ideology. He did it out of curiosity—and caution. “At first,” he says, “I was not sure if I should do it. In the 1990s, all the biological wines I tasted were not good. They were always a little acidic, too much air, a bit of chaos in the glass. Everything I learned in wine school told me this was bad winemaking.” The skepticism was reasonable. He had studied in Klosterneuburg, Austria’s most respected oenology school, where precision and hygiene were gospel. “We learned the classical way—clean, stable, no surprises,” he recalls. “What I saw from the early ‘bio’ producers didn’t look like that.”

According to him, something changed in the vineyard. Fischer began to notice that the soils under his older vines—the ones treated less often—were livelier. “I saw that biological work was good for the rootstocks, good for the environment. I just didn’t want the wine in the glass to become worse.”

In 2009, his curiosity won. The next year, he started formal training in organic viticulture and began converting his vineyards. “It was 2010,” he laughs, “the worst possible year—rain all the time, almost no sun. The teacher said: in your area, what is the problem? I said, oidium and peronospora—two fungi, one in dry heat, one in wet warmth. And 2010 was only wet. A real panic mode.” Armed with little more than sulfur, copper, and determination, Fischer sprayed twelve times that summer—every week through July and August. “At the end of the day, my grapes were healthier than the conventional ones,” he says. “For me it was the proof.”

Today, he sprays just six times a year—small doses of sulfur and copper, and nothing else. “If the weather is normal, that’s enough. I see that the vines are stronger. Like a child that takes cold showers—they become more robust.” He’s also experimented with sea-algae extracts rich in natural phosphoric acid—an organic alternative to synthetic fungicides. “It was fantastic,” he recalls. “Better than copper, really. Then, of course, the authorities decided it’s no longer a ‘health product’ but a ‘plant-protection chemical’—and suddenly it’s not allowed. Copper, which is toxic, is still fine. That’s crazy.”

For Fischer, organics is not about rules but about resilience. His vineyards are covered with green plants; yields are kept low to keep the rootstocks healthy. “If you have too much harvest per hectare, the vines can’t stay healthy,” he says. “It’s not possible. Less fruit, stronger plants.” He smiles at the idea that nature has finally become his co-worker. “We started this thinking it would be difficult,” he says. “Now, I can’t imagine doing it any other way. The vineyard knows what it’s doing.”

Fischer’s wines

It makes perfect sense to speak a bit about the top Fischer’s wine and vineyard: southwest of Sooß, the slopes of Ried Gradenthal rise just high enough (270–300 meters) to catch both the morning sun and the gossiping wind. The soils are a stony chaos of dolomite and sandy loam—loose enough to breathe, tough enough to make vines work for a living. It’s old vineyard land, marked on 19th-century maps when phylloxera was still just a rumor. Warm, restless and never dull, Gradenthal is where Zweigelt, Merlot and Chardonnay stretch their roots deep into scree and their fruit toward elegance.

Tasting through Christian Fischer’s range is like walking through the forested edge of the Thermenregion—pine, limestone, and late-summer air clinging to every glass. The Pinot Noir Classic 2020 opens the evening with a straightforward charm: slightly burnt acidity, a whisper of fruit and wood—a brisk, unpretentious 88 points. The Pinot Noir Premium 2020, though, immediately raises the curtain: juicy and elegant, with meaty sour cherry and the scent of pine needles after rain. It has great depth, polish, and poise—a wine that feels both serious and spontaneous (93).

The Zweigelt Classic 2020 is a surprise — all muscle and mineral, extreme fruit edged with graphite, vibrant and alive (91). Its older sibling, Zweigelt Ferabam Premium 2019, shows a warmer, aromatic profile, generous but more measured, as if exhaling after a long summer. Sankt Laurent Classic 2020 returns to briskness—taut acidity, bright fruit, sour cherry tension—the kind of wine that dances rather than walks (90).

Then comes the blend that defines Fischer’s more ambitious side: Vom Muschelkalk Reserve 2019, a 60/20/20 composition of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s very fruity yet disciplined, the oak perfectly judged, the balance remarkable (92). A deep echo of it can be found in Ried Gradenthal Premium 2018, where Pinot Noir drifts through warm pine forest and sun-dried earth—elegant, thin in the best way (92).

From the cellar came a Merlot 2015 still radiating youth: brisk acidity, beautiful barrel work, long life ahead (93). And a ghost from the past—Zweigelt Gradenthal 2008—astonishingly alive, with pine tar, resin, and forest floor notes of great depth and dignity.

Among the whites, the Chardonnay Classic 2024 feels shaped by the vintage: a touch of residual sweetness from a fermentation cut short by heat, slightly exotic and round but charming nonetheless (90). Rotgipfler 2024 shows the opposite temperament—pleasant, vibrant, open, all friendly sunshine (90). Christian adds: “Rotgipfler is our most important white. For me it is Austria’s answer to Chardonnay. You can produce all qualities with it—from fresh to age-worthy. What you cannot do is a very light, simple wine; it needs ripeness. It ages well for two to three years. This 2024 demonstrates friendliness and balance.” And it’s hard to disagree.

Later that evening, the tasting turns contemplative. Another Rotgipfler — Ried Römerberg 2021 unfolds with a soft, slightly reductive exoticism—citrus zest, white flowers, and a faint herbal tension, a beautiful local oddity (93). Its way older sibling, the 2015 Rotgipfler Premium, dives into petrol, balance, and perfectly tuned acidity—a complex one that proves how gracefully these wines age (94).

The Rotgipfler Orange 2022 surprises by restraint: very lean, elegant, with just a brush of tannin and no added sulfur, by the way.

And then—the Pinot Noir Hundred Cases 2016, Fischer’s most delicate statement. Uber-soft, lean, silky, almost whispering its aromatics; a touch of wood, perfectly proportioned, utterly harmonious. It doesn’t shout, only hums in tune and lingers long after the glass is empty (95).