Malinga

Engabrunn, Kamptal, Austria

Malinga is the wine project from the young Christoph Heiss, based in Kamptal, Austria. Christoph took over all of the winemaking at his family’s winery (Weingut Heiss) in 2013, the year he also started experimenting with a less-is-more approach under his own Malinga project. 

Christoph was born into a winemaking family, although it wasn’t until the age of 18 that he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. His early working years were spent in New Zealand at a large conventional winery as well as in the Pfalz in Germany where he did a harvest with Dr Burklin Wolf, his first exposure to organics and biodynamics. A key turning point however was the opportunity to work three harvests in South Africa in 2014, 2015, and 2017 with both Craig Hawkins of Testalonga and Jurgen Gouws of Intellego. This experience cemented his belief in a more natural style of winemaking, and set him on a path to focus more on the Malinga project and push more boundaries in the process. 

The Heiss family currently farm 12 hectares of vines, though only about 5 hectares of the best parcels end up being used for Malinga (although it’s growing gradually year on year). They are located in the town of Engabrunn, and the vineyards are on the Eastern border of Kamptal, with a couple of parcels actually over the border into the Wagram region. The farming has been organic since 2015 with conversion starting in 2013, and is now officially certified.

In this southern part of the Kamptal appellation the soils are dominated by loess and loam, which ultimately help to shape the more textured and broad profile of Christoph’s wines. He uses his family’s old underground cellar to age his wines, favouring long and slow fermentations. Up until 2018, he had only managed to make one 500L barrel of each cuvee. Luckily for us this project continues to grow and more wines are available year after year. A small production of stunning, pure wines showing astonishing maturity.