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.
