Michael Malat lucked out. Imagine what it must be like, being the eighth or ninth-generation winemaker at a European winery where they’ve been putting their name on the bottle since the late-1400s. Oftentimes, this can make for an awkward situation, because your future career trajectory has been predestined, probably before you were born. Guess what, kid, you’re going to be a winemaker!

Maybe they’d rather move to Milan and design shoes or perhaps they’d prefer to be hanging onto a steering wheel for dear life, piloting a F1 car around Monaco, or a Top Fuel Dragster rocketing down the strip in Pomona at 300+ mph. Or maybe it’s moving to Cupertino and writing AI code to make winemakers obsolete? They’re going to find themselves sitting on a tractor in the vineyard or racking barrels in the cellar until they have a child who takes your seat on the John Deere on behalf of the 10^th generation.

Michael Malat had no qualms about this preordainment, and fortunately for the Austrian angst-meter and a thirsty wine-drinking public, he took to the concept of being a vigneron like a duck to water. Over and above his natural charm and his movie-star good looks, the guy is a brilliant winemaker. The Malat winery is located in Krems, a town about an hour NW of Vienna. Their vineyards are on the slope above the winery (with its hotel) but below the massive, fortress-like Benedictine Abbey of Göttweig (who make some fine wine under their own label). Malat’s wines are precision personified, maximizing the minerally character of the site (as they say in Kremstal, “loess is more”).

In addition to the de rigueur Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, Michael also produces excellent Pinot Noir and sparkling wine, and even a little Gewürztraminer. Which, after all, is the point of all this eno-yammering. Gewurztraminer is not widely planted in Austria (it makes up .06% of the planted vines) but Malat puts it to good use. Its name (RAW) is appropriate, what with spontaneous fermentation, long skin contact, and absolutely minimalistic intervention in the winemaking process. The wine’s got terrific texture, aromatics, and flavor, and if you’re the sort of person who hasn’t exactly fallen onto the natural wine bandwagon, this is the wine to try. It won’t change your life, but it’ll affect it in a good way.