Andi Knauss
Weingut Knauss
Strümpfelbach, Württemberg
From the deep southwest of Germany in the Remstal, Andi Knauß comes from a family of winemakers. His father had made a break from the local co-op in 1995, and upon finishing wine school and internships in Austria, young Andi took over the reins. He has been building the winery by purchasing rows and vineyards all over the village (Strumpfelbach). He now harvests grapes from about a 100 different plots. The soils are comprised of a variety of Jurassic limestone with Gipskeuper, Schilf, and Kieselsandstein being the most abundant, while most of the wineries in the village date back to the 1500s.
Whereas winemaking was a hobby for earlier generations at this domain (a way of winding down after a day's work at the nearby Mercedes-Benz factory), Andi Knauss has long known he wanted to be a vigneron. After wine school and a stage in Austria (where Andi learned how to work organically in the vineyard, and to care for the soil) he took over the reins at Weingut Knauss in 2004, and in less than 10 years, he has developed one of the most important and exciting estates in Germany. The vineyards are worked naturally, and winemaking is careful and conscientious. Natural fermentations and minimal sulfur are the norm throughout the range, and some cuvees see no sulfur at all.
Andi, who is in his early thirties, runs a tight ship, making wine from over a hundred different plots in Strümpfelbach, the village where the winery is located, and a few surrounding villages in the hills around the river Rems. These hills are composed of different types of limestone of different eras, basically layerd on top of each other, changing with the altitude, between 300 and 400 meters above sea level. Vineyard land here is expensive, but Andi has slowly built up the estate parcel by parcel, sometimes just a row, selecting the best sites to be blended into the "Selection" and "Reserve" bottlings.
After working for a couple of years, Andi decided to try his hand at a few experiments, making some wines that he wanted to make, but that he wasn't sure the German market was ready for. So far these include a sparkling wine with no dosage, and Trollinger "Without all," a with no sulfur, yeast, sugars or any other additives of any shape or form (Andi even eschews adding a front label). One to watch!