The history of the mill in Golling

Owned and run by the Wieser family for four generations and manufacturing top-quality products from Austrian cereal grains

The mill ‘Lerchenmühle’ is located at the beginning of the picturesque Bluntau valley in Golling by a small waterfall along the Torrener Bach stream. The existence of the mill was first documented in the ‘Lehenbuch’ property survey ordered by Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach in 1495, and showed that in 1507 the mill was owned by a respected minister and his family. Until 1898, the Lerchenmühle mill was run by a series of owners as a two-way toll mill in which farmers were obliged to pay a toll or donate a share of their grain to the miller in order to grind their flour.

The great grandfather of the current owner, Gerhard Wieser, modernised the mill and also traded from the facility. Cereals were purchased from local farmers, ground at the mill, and then sold. In 1935, part of the mill was destroyed by fire and the mill ceased to operate for six years due to the Second World War. Two years after the end of the war the grandfather began to rebuild the mill. This work was continued by the current owner’s father, Michael Wieser. Since then, continual investment enabled the mill to be modernised, expanded and equipped with hydropower. Ultimately, the mill became fully fitted and fully automated in 1969.

Back then around 25 metric tons of cereals were ground every month. Abandonment of the quota system and Austria’s accession to the European Union in 1995 led Gerhard Wieser to intensify the company’s specialisation, above all to concentrate on corn-based goods and organic products.

Investment in the modernisation and expansion of the mill and its hydropower capacity has been ongoing:


2000 Expansion of the hydropower capacity via automatically regulated water retention gate
2001 Construction of a storage facility for finished products
2008 Expansion of existing cereal silo capacities
2009 Modernisation of loose material loading infrastructure and construction of loading cells
2010 Overall renovation including the installation of a modern corn mill and a 25t/d-capacity combi mill for wheat, rye and spelt
2019 Construction of new silo building begins to introduce numerous qualitative improvements