The Engineer & the No-Risk Story

The story of Simon Haag is a story of deliberate upheaval — of a young engineer who looked at his secure job in Hamburg, looked at the vineyard his parents had tended, and chose the uncertain path over the comfortable one. In 2020, Simon made a decision that would alter the trajectory of his life: he walked away from his engineering career and returned to Kitzingen, the Franconian town where he grew up, to take over his parents' farm and turn it into a winery. It was not a gradual transition; it was a leap. He enrolled in a winemaking apprenticeship, learned the craft from the ground up, and began the process of transforming a conventional family farm into a natural wine estate.

The early years were brutal. Two devastating frosts wiped out 80% of his harvest in the first vintages — a blow that would have ended many careers before they began. But Simon is not a man who quits. He pushed through, replanted, restructured, and obtained organic certification for the estate. He also restructured the vineyard's grape varieties, focusing on the varieties that spoke to him: Spätburgunder, Domina, Weißburgunder, Chardonnay, Silvaner, and Müller-Thurgau. The goal was not to replicate what his parents had done; it was to create something entirely his own — honest, spontaneous, unfiltered, and without additives.

Simon found his community in the New Kitz collective — a tight-knit group of independent winemakers in Kitzingen, including the legendary 2Naturkinder, who have become the beating heart of Franconia's natural wine renaissance. Together, they support each other without ever losing their own distinct style — a collaborative spirit that is rare in the competitive world of wine. Simon is a driving force in this movement, and his wines have become emblematic of the New Kitz philosophy: unconventional, full of character, and with a good portion of humor. As one retailer put it: "Simon Haag — the guy who shows that natural wine is not only craft but also attitude."

Today, Simon manages approximately 7.5 hectares in Kitzingen, though he has a clear goal: to reduce to 6 hectares to focus even more intensively on quality over quantity. The estate is organic-certified, the vines are tended by hand, and the cellar is a laboratory of experimentation — French barriques and tonneaux of different ages, spontaneous fermentations, and a refusal to add anything that does not belong in the wine. The result is a portfolio that is as unconventional as the man behind it: wines with names that are statements, labels that are bold, and flavours that are unmistakably Franconian. From the first frost-devastated vintage to the current releases, the arc of Simon Haag is the arc of a man who proved that no risk means no story — and his story is only beginning.

The guiding philosophy of Simon Haag is expressed in three words: honest, spontaneous, and unfiltered. He is committed to natural winemaking in its most rigorous and transparent form — employing organic farming in the vineyard, and a cellar approach that is entirely free of additives, filtration, and unnecessary interventions. This is not a reaction against modernity; it is the logical extension of an engineer's mind applied to the oldest craft: if the grapes are healthy and the process is clean, nothing needs to be added. The wines are made without cultured yeasts, without filtration, without fining, and without the standardising interventions that turn wine into a uniform product.

The methodology is deliberately simple and rigorously clean. Harvest is entirely manual, carried out across the 7.5 hectares, and transported immediately to the cellar. Fermentation is spontaneous, initiated by the indigenous yeasts that live on the grape skins and in the cellar air of Kitzingen. Simon does not inoculate, does not adjust temperatures aggressively, and does not force the wine into a predetermined shape. The whites and oranges are fermented and aged in a combination of French barriques and tonneaux of different ages — a setup that allows him to fine-tune each wine with the precision of an engineer who has become an artist. The reds are handled with equal restraint: gentle maceration, whole-bunch or destemmed fermentation, and minimal extraction.

The additives protocol is absolute: no additives of any kind. No sulfur during fermentation, no enzymes, no tannins, no sugar, no corrective agents. The wines are not filtered and not fined, preserving their natural turbidity, their living yeasts, and their evolving texture. This demands absolute cleanliness in the cellar, perfect grape health in the vineyard, and a willingness to accept that each bottle will be slightly different from the next. The aging is patient and thoughtful — the wines rest in barrel until Simon deems them ready, developing complexity, texture, and a subtle integration of wood and fruit that only time can provide.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a working space where the wines ferment at their own pace and are bottled with minimal intervention. There is no temperature-controlled tank farm, no laboratory analysis dictating additions, no consultant recommending corrective enzymes. There is only Simon, the grapes, the French barriques, and the patience to let the wine take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, spontaneous, and unfiltered — wines that change in the glass, that evolve in the bottle, and that carry the unmistakable signature of a man who traded blueprints for barriques and found that the engineering mind and the winemaking heart are not so different after all. Both require precision, patience, and the courage to take risks.

To understand Simon Haag, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a statement, a collective movement, and a proof that an engineer can become an artist. Simon Haag is not an heir to a centuries-old estate; he is a young man who walked away from a secure career, survived two devastating frosts, and found his voice in the vineyard. The identity of the project is defined by this risk: the risk of leaving Hamburg, the risk of starting from scratch, the risk of losing 80% of a harvest, and the risk of making wines that refuse to be labeled. His motto — no risk.no story — is not a slogan; it is a life philosophy.

The identity is also defined by community — the New Kitz collective, the tight-knit group of independent winemakers in Kitzingen who support each other without losing their distinct voices. Simon is not a lone wolf; he is a pack animal, a collaborator, and a believer that the natural wine movement is stronger when it moves together. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but statements in a glass — each name a provocation, each label a declaration, each flavour a story. The wines are made for the curious drinker, the natural wine bar, and the believer that wine should be alive, unpredictable, and honest.

The future of Simon Haag is tied to the continued health of his 7.5 hectares (soon to be 6), the deepening of organic practices, and the gradual expansion of a portfolio that already spans white, orange, red, and rosé. Simon is eager to go further — to experiment with new varieties, to explore longer macerations, and to obtain ever more natural expressions from the fruit of his own Muschelkalk soils. The "Welcome to the Family" will continue to be the welcoming drink, the Pinot Blanc-Chardonnay blend that invites you in. "She is rare" will continue to be the commanding red, the Domina that demands respect. "Not Labeled" will continue to defy categorisation. And "Nature gives. Nature takes." will continue to remind us that the vineyard is not a factory but a living ecosystem.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Simon Haag stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values an engineering mind over a consultant's fee, spontaneous fermentation over inoculation, zero additives over standardised stability, no filtration over cosmetic clarity, French barriques over stainless steel uniformity, the New Kitz collective over the lone wolf, the statement over the silence, the risk over the safety, and the specific voice of Kitzingen over the standardised replication of a global style. Simon Haag is not merely making wine; he is proving that an engineer can become a vigneron, that a small farm can become a movement, that a wine with no additives can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — no risk.no story — is often the most profound. From the first frost-devastated vintage to the 2024 release: all united in one bottle, one statement, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, unfiltered, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the Muschelkalk heart of Franconia.