International wine gurus have finally discovered Austria and have inspired us to trot to the local wine merchant in search of a bottle with "Österreich" on the label. If we find Austrian wines at the corner bottle shop, we are confronted with words on the labels like Ausbruch, Hauerabfüllung, Rotgipfler, Smaragd or Neusiedlersee. Austria has a large variety of excellent wines worth trying and you can actually get a good idea of how a particular bottle is going to taste by reading the information on the label. The only problem is that unless you speak German and have a good knowledge of Austrian grape varieties, appellations and quality rankings, you may not be able to decipher much more than the vintage, alcohol content and whether the wine is red or white. The following should give you a little guidance to very worthwhile wine discoveries.

( Note to read tasting notes on this wine ... click here )

Winery: Most Austrian wineries are family owned and operated and extremely small with an average size of 1.6 hectares. Because of the large number of boutique wineries in such a small country, Austria's strength will never be in quantity, but in quality. You can often recognize the name of the winery by looking for the words Weingut, Weinbau, Winzer, Schloss, Domäne, Burg, Kloster, or Stift which precede the family or house name.

Grape Varieties: Austrian wines are usually varietals and have the name of the grape in large print on the label. If a single grape is stated, you can be sure it constitutes at least 85% of the bottle's content. Austria is world famous for it's Riesling while other internationally popular grapes like Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon are also grown successfully. More important for Austrian wine country and much more fascinating for the consumer are the lesser known regional and autochthon varieties listed below.

Rank of Quality: There are basically three ranks of quality for Austrian wine: Tafelwein, Landwein, and Qualitätswein. Tafelwein and Landwein are the simple table wines, the Vin de Pays, of Austria. They make up less than 20% of the Austrian wine production and are rarely exported. Qualitätswein is subject to some of the strictest and most vigorously enforced wine laws in all of Europe including a 6750 liter per hectare quantity restriction. Beyond that these high quality wines are divided into different levels according to physiological ripeness and harvesting methods. Sugar may not be added from the Kabinett wines onwards.

*° KMW stands for Klosterneuburger Mostwaage which is the method of measuring
the natural sugar content of the must in weight percentage.

Residual Sugar: You will always find this on the label. Extra trocken means bone dry with a maximum of only 4 grams of residual sugar per liter. Trocken means dry with a maximum of 9 grams residual sugar when the acidity is not more than 2 grams per liter less. For example a wine with 9 grams per liter residual sugar must have at least a 7 gram per liter acidity. A wine with halbtrocken on the label can have up to 12 grams residual sugar per liter. The word lieblich doesn't directly translate into lovely; it lets you know that a wine has up to 45 grams of residual sugar per liter. Anything more than 45 grams sugar will have süß, meaning sweet, on the label.

Wine Regions and Appellations: Austria is divided into 9 political provinces and since June of 1999 each of these provinces belongs to one of Austria's four wine regions.

The wine region Bergland consists of only a few hectares of vineyards in the provinces Voralberg, Tyrol, Salzburg, Corinthia, and Upper Austria. These western alpine areas have hard cold winters and short growing seasons. Most wines from this region come from passionate part-time vintners that succeed in making quite palatable wines in good years. The extremely small quantity produced here is consumed locally never making it to the international market.

The wine region Wien is identical to the city of Vienna and is also the name of its only appellation. Vienna is the only capital in the world to have a wine region within city limits.

The wine region Steiermark is divided into three appellations: Südsteiermark, Südoststeiermark, and Weststeiermark.

Austria's largest wine region in terms of vineyard acreage is Weinland. Weinland consists of the provinces Burgenland and Lower Austria. The two large appellations, Burgenland and Niederösterreich are subdivided into smaller appellations. The appellations of Burgenland are Neusiedlersee, Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, Mittelburgenland, and Südburgenland. The appellations of Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) are Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal, Traisental, Donauland, Weinviertel, Carnuntum and Thermenregion.

Vineyards: Not only are the wineries quite small in Austria, soils can also vary greatly within a small area. A relatively large family winery may still have only 10 hectares of vineyards, but 10 different soils and 13 different grape varieties. As a result there are hundreds of Cru in Austria, each lending its own special characteristics to a wine. The best Cru are vinified separately to retain their special terroir and the name of the Vineyard is often found on the label. All those long vineyard names don't exactly roll off the English-speaking tongue and it's easy to understand why international consumers find all this Cru labeling a bit confusing. Still, one just has to try a bottle each of the same year, same grape, same vintner, different vineyard to taste why insiders vehemently defend Cru labeling.

Legend:
******Excellent, ***** very good, **** good, *** average, **unsatisfactory
Figures in green: not yet developed, continue to store
Figures in red: drink, can also be stored longer
Figures in blue: drink soon, highpoint could already be passed

Other special terms:

Erzeugerabfüllung, Gutsabfüllung, or Hauerabfüllung all mean that the wine was bottled by the vintner directly at the winery.

The marketing association "Vinea Wachau" has developed their own special categories for wines from the Wachau appellation.

Steinfeder: These are light, fruity wines with an alcohol content of 10-10.7% and should be drunk young.

Federspiel: These medium bodied wines have an alcohol content of no more than 12%.

Smaragd: This is the best category with the most aging potential, often 20 years or more. These wines are made from grapes that are physiologically completely ripe and have over 12% alcohol content. These wines need bottle aging to develop completely.

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