From the atlas
Meinklang
At A Glance
Meinklang is the Michlits family’s grower and maker in Burgenland, based at Hauptstraße 86 in Pamhagen. It is also a family-run mixed farm, where grapevines share the land with cattle, pigs, chickens, goats, ancient grains, orchards, ponds and wildland. Graupert Grauburgunder 2022 is the clearest bottle expression in the available range: a skin-fermented Pinot Gris with a cloudy lees appearance, broad aromas and a dense, driving palate.
The Producer
Meinklang begins with a farm, not a separate vineyard compound. The Michlits family runs wine production alongside livestock and crops, allowing animals, fields and vines to occupy one agricultural system. Cattle, pigs, chickens and goats add biodiversity, while livestock provide natural fertiliser for the fields and vineyards.
The farm also produces its own seed and animal feed and grows ancient grains beside the grapevines. That combination gives the producer a specific working shape: Meinklang is both a grower and maker in Burgenland and a family-run mixed farm whose vineyard decisions sit inside wider farm practice.
Place
The farm lies on the eastern side of Lake Neusiedl, close to the Hungarian lowlands and within the World Heritage landscape of the Neusiedlersee National Park. Pamhagen supplies the geographic anchor on the label, while Burgenland identifies the Austrian wine region.
No village appellation or DAC is supplied for the producer here. The useful label information therefore comes from the producer name, the grape and the cuvée. Graupert’s Pinot Gris is a bottle shaped by Meinklang’s farming and cellar choices, not by an asserted vineyard hierarchy.
Soil And Site
No soil type is supplied, so the site is best understood through its living layout. Meinklang’s vineyard parcels are scattered among grazing land, orchards, waterways, wildland and natural ponds. Vines do not form one continuous block, and the surrounding land brings animals, crops and water into the same agricultural picture.
That arrangement changes the work around the vines. Livestock can supply fertiliser, while ponds, orchards and uncultivated ground remain part of the landscape rather than being cleared from it. The physical setting is varied, with farming organised across many small blocks.
Story
The Michlits family’s central choice is to run wine as part of a mixed farm. Animal husbandry is treated as an essential part of biodynamic farming, so cattle, pigs, chickens and goats are active components of the property rather than decorative additions. Their presence supplies manure and supports the farm’s biodiversity, while ancient grains, home-produced seed and animal feed extend the same logic beyond the vineyards.
Farming follows solar rhythms, the biodynamic calendar and preparations made from materials including cow manure, nettles, chamomile and horsetail. People from elsewhere in Austria visit Meinklang to learn Demeter-level biodynamic practices. The farm’s model has therefore become both a way of working its own parcels and a place where that work is shown to others.
Vineyards And Cellar
Meinklang farms through biodynamic preparations and a landscape of small vineyard blocks, grazing land, orchards, ponds, waterways and wildland. The vines are part of a mixed property, while livestock provide natural fertiliser for the fields and vineyards. The farm’s own seed and animal feed keep more of the agricultural cycle on site.
Graupert Grauburgunder 2022 carries those choices into the cellar through ten days of skin contact, spontaneous fermentation, unfiltered bottling and minimal sulphur. The wine was matured partly in a concrete egg and partly in stainless steel. Its lees-cloudy appearance and dense palate belong to this deliberately hands-off cellar treatment, while the split élevage gives the bottle two different vessels during maturation.
Wines
Graupert Grauburgunder 2022 is the principal white wine in the available range. It is Pinot Gris, also called Grauburgunder, fermented on its skins for ten days. The style is lees-cloudy rather than clear and narrowly filtered, with aromatic breadth, density and substantial palate drive. Its character balances unruly rusticity with graceful delicacy, giving the bottle both a rough-edged feel and a softer, more lifted side.
Meinklang Pinot Noir 2023 supplies a red Pinot Noir alongside Graupert. The available details establish the grape and vintage, but do not supply a defensible account of its blend, parcel, flavours or ageing outlook, so those details should not be added. The named bottles show two different colour and grape directions, while the complete estate range remains broader than the evidence presented here.
In The Glass
Graupert rises from the glass with broad, layered aromas rather than a narrowly defined fruit profile. Ten days of skin contact give the Pinot Gris a deeper, more substantial presence, and the lees-cloudy appearance signals a wine bottled without filtration. The aroma feels expansive because the wine keeps more of its original material in the bottle.
On the palate, density arrives first, followed by substantial drive. Spontaneous fermentation and maturation in both concrete egg and stainless steel accompany that combination of weight and movement, while minimal sulphur keeps the presentation direct. The finish holds the wine’s two-sided character: unruly rusticity at the edges, graceful delicacy through the close. Pinot Noir 2023 is a red counterpart in the named range, but its tasting sequence is not supplied.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with Graupert Grauburgunder 2022. It is Meinklang’s skin-fermented Pinot Gris, made with ten days of skin contact, spontaneous fermentation and élevage split between a concrete egg and stainless steel. In the glass it is cloudy with lees, broad in aroma, dense through the middle and driven across the palate, with a meeting of rustic edges and delicate lift.
The bottle also carries clear cellar markers: it is unfiltered, minimally sulfured, listed at 12.0% alcohol and given an ageing potential of up to five years. That combination makes Graupert the most direct first taste of Meinklang’s farm-based approach and its willingness to let a grape show more texture and breadth.
Anecdote
At Meinklang, a large wooden box holds a working mixture of cow manure, stinging nettles, chamomile, horsetail and other vineyard supplements. The materials ferment together on a farm where cattle, pigs, chickens and goats live alongside the vines. Around the box, dozens of small vineyard blocks sit among grazing land, orchards, waterways and wildland, so the ingredients in the preparation belong to the same landscape as the grapes. Farming follows solar rhythms, the biodynamic calendar and preparations made on the property. People from elsewhere in Austria visit Meinklang to learn Demeter-level biodynamic practices. The box sits inside a farm where animal husbandry, crops and vines share the day’s work.
Final Word
Meinklang’s wines begin with a mixed farm in Pamhagen and finish with bottles that retain a sense of agricultural breadth. Graupert Grauburgunder 2022 gives that approach its clearest taste: cloudy, aromatic, dense, driven, rustic and delicate in the same glass.
Sources
- https://meinklang.at/en/
- https://www.rawwine.com/profile/meinklang
- https://www.sagerandwine.com/meinklang
- https://www.juiceimports.com/meinklang
- https://meinklang.at/produkt/graupert-grauburgunder-2022/
- https://www.saq.com/en/13442916
- https://www.aperitif.no/pollisten/produkt/meinklang-pinot-noir%2C2353320