The Viennese love their white wines young and fresh. Winemakers in Gols would prefer to wait.Farmers the world over complain about the weather – too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. Wine growers are no different – that is, mostly: The white wine bounty of 2017 has left Austria’s vintners singing praises to the weather gods. Last year...
Austrian reds have struggled to catch up with their magnificent white cousins, but the best are now coming of age.Historically, Austria has always been white wine territory, that freshly drawn carafe of iconic Grüner Veltliner greeting you in your favorite Vienna Heuriger. Red wine was, well, there and we drank it. But this began to change in the 1980s,...
If Rome has coffee and Moscow has vodka, then Vienna’s soul fuel is surely wine.The city is awash in the stuff: dozens of Vinotheken and wine bars, some as vast as supermarkets and others intimate, but all bring us the best that France, Italy or Spain has to offer. To say nothing of the several hundred growers within easy...
The unique qualities of older vintages aren’t apparent, so let an expert’s insight guide you.Old wines hold a certain mystery. With their dusty labels, shelved away in chilly cellars, their allure is in the rediscovery. Like a message in a bottle (quite literally), the value of the contents has as much to do with its transformation as with the...
Hungary has a terroir all its own, with a heart and soul rooted in the small, family vineyardsLess than three hours from Vienna, you are in a very different world of bor (wine): the Badacsony region on Lake Balaton, Hungary. The Badacsony-hegy (mountain – and the Y’s are silent) is a basalt outcrop along the north shore, once a...
Unpredictable weather has kept Austrian vintners
on their toes, making the 2017 vintage a challenging oneAs smartphones and technology keep us curled up inside, we like to think we have mastered our environment, but ask any vintner and he’ll tell you a different story: The smallest meteorological factor can make or break a vintage, and, technology notwithstanding, good wine is...
Rest your weary feet and take Vienna’s Heurigen Express to some of the city’s most charming BuschenschänkeHaving lived in Vienna for seven years, you’d think I’d seen it all. Little did I know there is a world of fruit covered greenery ripening just beyond my daily beat. As summer comes to a close, the tour buses veer north to...
Award-winning winery Pfaffl has helped establish Austria’s signature Grüner Veltliner on the daunting American market.
Good as they are, Austrian wines often go unnoticed outside the country, especially with giants like France or Italy hogging the limelight. Even large producers can have a hard time making it internationally. The family-owned Pfaffl winery in Lower Austria is among the few that...
The Weinviertel has as many philosophies as vintners“Popsicles. With lychee aroma!” René Willmann of the Poysdorf Weinmarkt (wine market) scoffed, a staunch defender of classical Austrian winemaking and not overly impressed by the trendy tipples in Generation Y’s watering holes. And he has good reason: The 30 winemakers whose nearly 500 wines are on display in his Vinothek are among...
