FX Pichler's Riesling Unendlich - The Coolest Label Ever?

Posted by CrushWine

I love Austrian wine labels - they so often have this strange, playful modernist thing that I find really kooky and charming. Like the Bauhaus meets Playskool. Coming way out of left field then, is the label for FX Pichler's Riesling "Unendlich" - a super-rare bottling the Master puts together in great years. For those of you who know FX's pretty staid dark green labels, nothing prepares you for the Unendlich...

Weren't prepared, were you? Yet the intrigue grows... apparently, the label is based on a famous stage design for an 1815 production of Mozart's The Magic Flute by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Specifically, this is the set for the Act I introduction of the Queen of the Night, as she breaks out into that great tune, "Oh zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn." Wow. Check out the link below - scroll down, there's actually a photograph of Schinkel's stage painting.

Schinkel's stage painting.