Gerhard Pittnauer took over his family's vineyards in Burgenland at just eighteen years old, after his father died unexpectedly in the mid-1980s, right as Austria's diethylene glycol wine scandal was collapsing the industry's exports and reputation. Rather than retreat into convention, he spent years traveling through France and Italy, tasting his way toward the kind of wine he actually wanted to make. 

In 2006 he began converting the estate to biodynamic farming, and the following year helped found Respect, an international group of biodynamic producers. Nearly two decades on, he and his wife Brigitte still farm and vinify by hand on their vineyards near Lake Neusiedl, making what they call "living wines."