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The hills are alive
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This weeks feature
Virtually unknown in Britain, Austrian wine has taken a long time to recover from the great de-icer scandal of the Eighties - Graham Sherwood reports.
The thought of anything Austrian conjures up an image of affluence, quality, culture and sophistication. A trip to the capital, Vienna, leaves visitors spellbound. So why are Austrian wines almost unknown and so difficult to find here in the UK?
One likely reason is that we have very long memories and love a good scandal. In 1985, a few unscrupulous Austrian wine merchants were caught adding diethylene glycol - more usually associated with the prevention of ice build-up on airport runways - to beef up wines that were destined for the German blending market. Interestingly, no one at the time seemed worried about the fact that the Germans were passing off Austrian wines as their own! |
Ruster Ausbruch; photo by Sabine Jellasitz |
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Needless to say, the effect on the Austrian wine industry was catastrophic. But starting over from the very bottom enabled the authorities to completely rewrite the wine laws, reclassify the geographical vine growing regions and review the styles of wine produced there, in order to appeal to a more modern and informed wine consumer. |
Delightfully crisp
Austria has traditionally been best known as a producer of unctuously sweet dessert wines, but a younger generation of wine-makers has finally wrestled the reins from their disillusioned fathers, and begun to produce exciting ‘trocken’ wines - dry, delightfully crisp, with fruity and freshly acidic flavours, ideal for early drinking. |
The Wachau - the village of Loiben and the Danube |
Perhaps the most important wine region, historically and qualitatively, is the Wachau. Forty-five miles west of Vienna, the river Danube cuts through a range of hills, forming steep slopes on its north bank that rise to 500m less than a mile from the banks. From vines grown on these rugged outcrops come some of the finest Austrian wines, famed for longevity, typicity and mineral fruit balance. |
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The Wachau accounts for a mere three per cent of Austria’s total vineyard area, but surprisingly contains around 900 prestigious sites near the towns of Spitz, Weissenkirchen, Oberloiben and Unterloiben, making truly magnificent wines from either the noble Riesling or the indigenous Gruner Vetliner. About 70 per cent of Austrian grapes are white varieties, with Gruner Vetliner the most important, representing one in every three vines planted. This crisp, somewhat steely, grapefruit-flavoured wine, with fresh peppery, herby aromas is a superb early-drinking wine, a foil to the regal Riesling, also important here, which needs more time to develop in the bottle.
The Austrian Rieslings have more in common with the French Alsatian wines than their German equivalent, being altogether fresher and greener, with a crisp, zesty, zip to the finish. |
Botrytus in action.... Photo Sabine Jellasitz |
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Gumpoldskirchen, wine village par excellence; the renowned Heurigen of Brückberger-bein-Brunnen |
Twenty miles along the Danube, closer to Vienna, the Kremstal region makes similarly well-produced white wines that mature a little quicker, a characteristic of the change in topography to clay and limestone. An area previously dominated by large co-operatives like Lenz Moser, Kremstal now has many young winemakers determined to make their own way. |
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Reds
Red wines, normally light but fruity concoctions, made with the local varieties Zweigelt or Blauburgunder, a strain of the Pinot Noir grape, are now being blended with classic Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons, and show very promising glimpses of what the future may hold. |
The vineyards of Wien, the Austrian name for Vienna, lie around three sides of the city and are centred on five villages - Neustift, Grinzing, Sievering, Nussdorf and Kahlenburg. In order to provide an outlet for their produce, as most of it is consumed locally, many winemaking families own taverns in the city itself. This offers serious wine tourists the opportunity to partake in a thorough comparative tasting of the city’s best wines, in what must seem like an up-market pub-crawl. |
Wachau - Grüner Veltliner |
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Most brands are termed heurige, a generic name for tavern wines. These may be made from the uniquitous Gruner Vetliner, Weissburgunder Traminer or the very basic Muller Thurgau. It is rare to see Riesling sold as heurige. |
Wachau - Other White Grape Varieties | The future of Austrian winemaking?
To the south of Wien, the Gumpoldskirchen area is best known for highly alcoholic dessert wines, though their popularity is waning along with the global drift towards drier, crisper flavours. In Austria’s south-eastern corner, bordering Hungary, lies, arguably, the future of Austrian winemaking. Burgenland is also known for its lusciously sweet, botrytis-affected dessert wines, but several far-sighted young winemakers are beginning to re-plant with serious amounts of classic red grape varieties here, most notably the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. |
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In Burgenland, the Gruner Vetliner represents less than 20 per cent of the vines planted, well below the national average, and a clear statement of intent to further develop the global, vogueish thirst for red wines. Careful blending of local Zweigelt and St Laurent grapes with the Cabernet and Merlot, using a small amount of new French oak barrels, is producing some surprising results. |
Burgenland |
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Austrian Sweet Wines |
After what must have seemed like a life sentence, bestowed by a few fraudsters, the Austrian wine industry is back on an even keel. Quality was never in doubt, and the ‘back to the drawing board’ approach is beginning to attract the attention of the world’s press - this time, however, for the right reasons. |
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