Christina Hugl

Hands on the year’s base wine

Christina Hugl tastes for line and lift as winemaker at Christina Hugl in Langenlois, working Kamptal fruit toward Sekt and Pet-Nat rather than still wine. Christina Hugl came to this station through service first, not through a straight cellar apprenticeship. She worked in Salzburg in 2007, in Noordwijk in 2008, returned to kitchen work in 2009, and by 2011 held the Chef de Rang post at Therme Laa. From 2012 to 2015, at Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin, she moved from the brasserie into La Tour as Chef de Rang and Assistant Sommelier, spending those years close to the pass, the table, and the opened bottle.

The cellar work began from family ground. Hugl grew up inside a winemaking family and made her first wine in 2014 from grapes her father provided, then followed it with her first sparkling wine. Since 2016 she has served as winemaker at Christina Hugl I Sekt & Pet-Nat in Langenlois, and since 2017 she has been owner, founder, and winzerin of Christina Hugl. The role is narrow by choice. She is a Sprudelwinzerin, a sparkling-wine maker, and the house is built around that discipline.

Four hectares for bubbles

The program rests on 4 hectares in and around Langenlois, all directed toward Sekt and Pet-Nat. Grüner Veltliner, Welschriesling, and Zierfandler sit within the stated range of the house, with Welschriesling appearing in the Blanc de Blancs Reserve Brut. Hugl works in the Kamptal, where loess, gneiss, and primary rock give the base wines the acidity and mineral frame that sparkling wine needs before the second life begins in bottle.

Her production is small and sparkling-focused, with more than 10,000 bottles annually as of 2024. The house’s language is handwork, detail, and pearls in the glass, and the method follows that rather than a volume brief. Sekt here means traditional-method patience; Pet-Nat keeps the older pétillant naturel line in the cellar. Hugl’s work also reaches into experiment, including the ERNST x HUGL BLAUBRAUSE PET-NAT 2023, a Blaufränkisch collaboration that places her bubble discipline against another producer’s red-fruited material. The shared point is not novelty. It is pressure, fruit, timing, and the decision to let each wine keep its own edge.

A cellar and terrace among Kamptal vineyards

The place does not read as a grand estate. It is a small winery and cellar in Langenlois, with an on-site tasting space and an outdoor terrace set among Kamptal vineyards. The room stays close to the work: bottles, glasses, the counter, the movement between cellar tasting and terrace tasting. Conversation can hold its shape here, which suits wines that ask for attention to mousse, lees, acidity, and the finish after the bead fades.

Hugl and her partner Robert relocated to Mollands, a high-altitude wine village north of Langenlois, with their dog Dolly and sheep. That choice matters to the atmosphere as much as to the cellar. The place feels built at human scale, with sunset terrace evenings and group tastings that stay near the hands behind the bottles. The terrace glass catches the line of Kamptal light over Dolly’s home ground in Mollands.