One could compare the ascent of Austrian wine to that of phoenix from the ashes. What was once a great wine culture lay devastated by phylloxera, oidium, and peronospera at the beginning of the 1900's only to rise and become one of Europe's most vibrantly dynamic wine countries.

The first efforts of revival of the country's vineyards were frustrated by two world wars. As Austrian wine finally began to reawaken in the 1950's, the industry looked to Germany for its role model and drew up wine quality laws based on the Germanic sugar pyramid and planted mostly white grape varieties.

In the 1980's a new quality revolution began and as it rapidly gained momentum, Austrian climate, soils, and culture dictated the development of regional identities very different to Germany's. Several pockets in Lower Austria have ideally suited microclimates for black grape cultivation as vintner Willi Bruendlmayr has demonstrated so well. In the southern reaches of Lower Austria, one even finds the world's largest connected area of St. Laurent vineyards in the Thermenregion wine district. In Carnuntum, like Thermenregion, the climate is markedly influenced by the warm Pannonian steppe and young winemakers like Gerald Markowitsch are causing quite a stir with their big, generous, fruit-driven reds. Moving even further south out of Lower Austria into the four wine districts of Burgenland, one increasingly finds terroir predestined for black grape varieties. Drink the deep, dark, juicy red wines with exotic spice coming from wineries like Prieler, Heinrich, Wellanschitz, or Bayer from the gentle rolling vineyards beyond Lake Neusiedl and suddenly it becomes quite clear that this indeed is red wine country.
New Wines in the Old World

The Austrians underestimated their red wine potential until in the mid 1980's a small handful of pioneers named Anton Kollwentz, Ernst Triebaumer, Hans Igler, and Georg Stiegelmar surprised the world with some truly classy and complex reds.

These rebels ignored the commonly accepted opinion that Austria was white wine country and capable of making light, simple red wines at most. They employed the use of new small oak barrels and next to their old indigenous vines, they matched the terroir with revolutionary plantings of international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot Noir. Malolactic fermentation was not yet even taught at Austria's enology schools, so these autodidactic radicals sent their sons and daughters abroad to gain experience in red winemaking techniques in Bordeaux, Australia, and California. This international exposure has been an important catalyst not only in winemaking practices, but also in dramatically improving and modernizing wine education. Despite this newly won global view, it is beguiling that regional identity has kept vintners from abandoning their old indigenous vines for yet another version of a more famed international grape.

Zweigelt is Austria's primary red wine grape and is a crossing of Blaufraenkisch and St. Laurent. This easy to manage variety produces fruit-driven, approachable wines with soft tannins. St. Laurent is closely related to Pinot Noir and is rarely found outside of Austria. Like its close relative, St. Laurent is difficult in the vineyard, but steadfast efforts produce silky, rich wines with generous red berry fruit and an earthy, spicy background. The best Austrian Blaufraenkisch are concentrated, velvety wines with dark berry fruit, mineral flavors and spicy nuances not found in the variety elsewhere. "It is the heavy, well-drained clay soils with their iron content that give our Blaufraenkisch its piquancy and mineral components,"says vintner Reinhold Krutzler and continues, "5,000 vines per hectare and selection of clones with small, thick skinned berries guarantee well-balanced concentration of the wines."

With the global exchange of knowledge, Austrian winemakers now have the full gamut of the newest winemaking techniques and technologies at their disposal. The first efforts with malolactic fermentation may have been clumsy and the use of small oak barrels initially heavy-handed. But now even must concentration methods like reverse osmosis and vacuum extraction as well as other enological novelties like microoxydation are understood and used skillfully by leading wineries. These winemaking techniques combined with meticulous viticulture have brought about great improvements. The progression in quality over the last twenty years has been momentous, and over the last ten phenomenal.

Despite records of Cabernet Sauvignon being re-imported by the French from the Austro-Hungarian imperial gardens during the phylloxera epidemic, the variety was first reintroduced to Austria in 1981 by Anton Kollwentz. Following the prevalent white wine making practices of the times, nearly all the reds were initially light, fruity varietals. All of that has changed with complex blends and single-vineyard varietals now play the leading role. Austrian wine laws are extremely strict in regards to quality control, but allow vintners a fair amount of freedom in the choice of grape varieties for both varietals and blends. A very recommendable group of vintners in Burgenland make typical oak-aged Austrian blends they brand Pannobile, which is made predominantly from Zweigelt, Blaufraenkisch, and St. Laurent with the addition of Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir. Although leading Austrian wine makers had long been maturing their best wines in new small oak barrels, enologist Andi Kollwentz states, "The malolactic fermentation was not fully understood by a broad number of the country's winemakers until the historic 1990 vintage." When reflecting on current vinification, Josef Poeckl, the vintner of some of Austria's most sought-after reds summarizes "All the newest techniques are used with precision --- or intentionally not used, depending on the vintner's philosophy, the grape variety, and the conditions of the vintage." Austria's red wine country is truly a treasure trove for wine lovers searching for extraordinary artisinal wines with flavors beyond the standard Cabernet.