45% Pinot Gris macerated for two weeks, 45% Blaufränkisch & Rotburger one week carbo, 10% Red Muskateller macerated for 9 days. 60 bottles made by yours truly.
Kollektiv Peternell
Kollektiv Peternell is one of the most exciting natural wine projects to emerge from Austria in recent years—a collaborative négociant project built around friendship, experimentation, and a deep connection to the wider European natural wine scene.
Founded in 2019 by Paul Schuster, Simon Ecker, and Dave Ferris, the project stretches between Petronell-Carnuntum in Lower Austria and Gols in Burgenland. None of the three founders come from traditional winemaking families, which perhaps explains the openness and freedom that defines both the wines and the project itself. Their backgrounds are rooted instead in restaurants, bars, travel, harvest work, and years spent immersed in natural wine culture across Europe.
The origins of Kollektiv Peternell trace back to harvest work at Matassa and Partida Creus in 2018, where Schuster and Ferris met while working alongside some of the most influential voices in natural wine. Encouraged by Partida Creus’ Massimo Marchiori to begin making wine themselves, the pair teamed up with Schuster’s childhood friend Simon Ecker and launched the project the following year.
That wide-ranging influence still runs through everything they do. Schuster continues to work as a chef at Jeanne in Antibes, Ferris manages Vienna natural wine institution Rundbar, and Ecker remains deeply connected to Vienna’s nightlife and hospitality world. The wines feel shaped as much by long nights around restaurant tables and cellar tastings as they do by formal winemaking tradition.
From humble beginnings in a small cellar in Petronell-Carnuntum, Kollektiv Peternell has steadily grown into one of Austria’s most compelling young natural wine projects. In 2022, the group expanded production into a new cellar in Gols while maintaining roots in their original home base. That same year also marked the first importation of Kollektiv Peternell wines into the United States following a close friendship and collaboration formed between Paul Schuster and Ryan at Terroirizer, including time spent working harvest together in Austria during the 2022 vintage.
The trio source fruit primarily from organic and biodynamic growers around Burgenland, working only with non-irrigated vineyards. Farming and cellar work are intentionally low-intervention: native yeast fermentations, whole-cluster macerations, minimal extraction, no sulfur additions, and no filtration.
But more than technical choices, what stands out is the feeling of the wines themselves. They are energetic, raw in the right ways, and full of personality without ever feeling forced. Some are bright and playful, others more experimental and textured, but all carry the same sense of curiosity and freedom that defines the project as a whole.
Kollektiv Peternell represents a new generation of Austrian natural wine—less tied to regional expectation, more connected to community, instinct, and the simple idea that wine should feel alive.
Humanitarian aid for Gaza via The Sameer Project & Gaza Soup Kitchen
Three years ago, I went to Austria to work harvest with my friends Paul, Dave, and Simon of Kollektiv Peternell. On one of the last days I was there, Paul invited me to make a wine. I nervously said yes, filling a single demijohn with an assemblage of juices at different stages of fermentation to make a one-off Terroirizer cuvée, just for fun.
Fast forward to now. The wine is in a good place. Maybe still a little reductive for some, but give it some air and it opens up into something fresh and really enjoyable. I've been asking myself for the last couple of years what I would eventually do with the 53 bottles we have. I considered offering them exclusively to our wine club members or maybe throwing a big party, popping the bottles, and showing a mini-doc we shot during harvest. But that's no longer the plan.
Instead, we're donating 100% of sales evenly to Gaza Soup Kitchen, providing hot meals and clean water to Palestinians facing deliberate starvation and The Sameer Project, an organization led by Palestinians in the diaspora working to supply food and humanitarian aid to displaced families in Gaza.
It's easy to feel helpless when the bulk of the world seems to be standing still in the face of a genocide. But having the chance to raise over $2,000 for people who desperately need it from a single demijohn of wine we made years ago—gives me a little hope. It’s wild to think that something this small could ripple out and make a real impact. Kinda magical, honestly.
If there's ever anything that I, or Terroirizer, can do to help you realize your own little dream of making a positive impact, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Free Palestine. Stop the genocide.
