Christian Tschida - Birdscape 2019
We start the new year with a Birdscape 2019 by Christian Tschida.
If the inner label drinker cries out loudly at this bottle and presses the buy button, who is there to blame him. The fact that the contents are made by Christian Tschida from Burgenland is almost just a bonus. The painting itself is by Erró and I really like the art editions that Christian Tschida puts on the market. The wine is made from Pinot Noir and Blaufränkisch, grown as a blend in one vineyard. Pink Maceration it says on the bottle, which means the Birdscape is macerated very gently and briefly and is therefore quite light in colour, but not rosé. Fortunately, the picture captures this quite well, thanks to the light from behind. It is fermented spontaneously in large wood and bottled without sulphur. So far, so natural and, at least in my mind, the perfect, fresh entry into 2021.
Immediately after uncorking, it smells extremely fresh and slightly wild. A bit like cold fruit tea with hibiscus, which you also find on the tongue. In addition, there is a tannin that seems very light at first, but then grabs hold at the edges of the tongue. In the middle of the tongue, on the other hand, there is a wonderful red fruit and a juicy, fresh acidity. Great! On the nose now some animal stable, cranberries, cherries and berry seeds. The acidity gets livelier with every moment, the tannin rounder and rounder. So light and yet so much depth.
It stays that way. The fruit is quite charming and somewhere in between there are notes I would not have suspected. Pineapple perhaps, or even melon. The wine still has minimal carbonic acid, which, together with the freshness and juiciness, make us want to take the next sip so much that tasting it over more than one evening is a feat of self-discipline. But what is already clear is that on the one hand it is extremely difficult to put Birdscape into a drawer and on the other hand that doesn’t matter at all.
The night brings herbs to the nose and at the same time makes the wine harder to grasp. The fruit is no longer so clearly to grasp, the tannin has changed. The tannin now dries out the entire back of the mouth a little, but without being noticeable in a negative way. Overall, the whole wine is much softer than on the first evening, the carbonic acid is of course gone, it has become more floral. But this does not make it less fun. The Birdscape may be the first red 2021 in our glasses, but I can already say that it will be remembered until the end of the year.