The traditional family winery is located in the wine town of Langenlois in the Lower Austrian wine-growing region of Kamptal. It was founded by Josef Hiedler in 1856. For several decades, the winery was run on a part-time basis. In 1980, Ludwig Hiedler, the fourth generation of the family, became the first full-time winemaker and, together with his Spanish wife María Ángeles, set the course for the future of the winery with consistent decisions. In the meantime, Dietmar and Ludwig III. Hiedler, the 5th generation has taken over responsibility for the winery. Two owls carved in stone in front of the winery gates are the emblem of the winery and are meant to symbolise the relationship between "knowledge, experience, culture and nature, united in wine".
The largely terraced vineyards cover around 30 hectares of vineyards in the Gaisberg, Hasel, Heiligenstein, Kittmannsberg, Kogelberg, Schenkenbichl, Spiegel, Steinhaus and Thal vineyards. They are 90% planted with the white wine varieties Grüner Veltliner (with about half of the stock), Riesling, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay, and 10% with the red wine varieties Zweigelt, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese. The sustainable cultivation is largely carried out according to ecological or organic guidelines with, for example, no use of herbicides and insecticides. Intensive foliage management, the use of compost and year-round cover crop with wild herbs ensure living soils and healthy growth, thus promoting beneficial insects as natural enemies of vine pests. Only physiologically ripe and healthy grapes are processed through selective manual harvesting.
Fermentation is partly spontaneous with the vineyard's own yeasts. Intensive ageing on the fine yeast is intended to promote structure, minerality and digestibility. Biological acid reduction (malolactic fermentation) also plays a decisive role. Further ageing takes place in stainless steel tanks, which are available in different sizes for the selection lots, as well as in traditional large wooden barrels (acacia) and barriques (oak). The natural cellar, embedded eight metres deep in the loess, guarantees constantly cool temperatures and constant humidity with optimal storage and ripening conditions for the wines. These are bottled after 4 to 36 months during the waxing of the moon. The top wines include several Rieslings and Grüner Veltliner Kamptal DAC from different vineyards (Erste Lage), as well as the single-varietal Pinot Noir and the red wine cuvée "Liubisa". Around 200,000 bottles of wine are produced annually. The winery is a founding member of the Winzervereinigung Traditionsweingüter Österreich.
