Making wine has something to do with stubbornness, in the most beautiful sense of the word: doing what you think is right, without pretensions, but with great freedom. Josef Scharl calls this character. Being your own, or in his case Aigen, is the opposite of equality. That makes the difference here. Not bending, not conforming too much and yet not counting everything out. Being generous is perhaps the best way to describe him. He himself lives in his wines, his way of doing things, with his very own head. They are an expression of what he stands for. They are like him: real character actors.
Learning to fly, becoming a fireman - or simply making wine: Josef Scharl always knew what he wanted. You can recognise characters by the fact that they live for their ideal. He lives for this place, his family, for sparkling wine and for Pinot Noir. Of course, he also likes all the other grape varieties in his cellar, but Pinot is his reference, the supreme discipline in winemaking.
If you want to make wine, says Josef Scharl, you have to listen, feel, see and find out what's inside you - and then just do it, with all your passion. The way he does this is closely linked to the region. Well, you've already been to France, watched the idols at work, drunk their wines and then returned home to this place and to his wine. The best way to understand Josef Scharl is probably to meet him on the farm. With grand gestures, he describes the view over St. Anna, a special patch of land. The ragged clouds move quickly, the air is damp, the nights are cool and the soil is barren and volcanic. You can taste it and you love it. There are favourite sites and favourite wines. "Wines are complex creatures, they have that in common with us humans. They combine different, sometimes even contradictory characteristics. The adapted fights against the urge for freedom and the light against the dark. Diversity is important, it shapes character and therefore uniqueness," he sums it up. Because life is evolution.
And the cap? There is a place just outside St. Anna am Aigen, somewhere in the Basque Country. In the coastal town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in a small alleyway called Rue Loquin, the "béret basque", the beret, was invented. For Josef Scharl, this is practically the birthplace of his passion for caps. He now has countless of them, so many that he has long since stopped counting. The size of a plate and in all colours and patterns, they have become Josef's trademark. No wonder they also adorn the bottles. You can recognise character from afar.
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