Austria: know your vintages
with brutally oaked, extracted wines. By the late 1990s, thankfully, the excesses were being phased out, and there was a return to traditional Austrian varieties.
Many strings to the bow
Just as it became apparent that Grüner Veltliner was a remarkable white variety, capable of producing zesty, uncomplicated wines as well as powerful wines with great ageing potential, so Blaufränkisch emerged as a fine local red variety. It too could be drunk for its youthful fruit, or, from great sites, could demonstrate a richness and power balanced by tannin and acidity. Many estates also produced complex blends (called cuvées in Austria), even though the proliferation of wines with names such as Comondor, Admiral, Vulcano, Tycoon and Veratina proved a marketing nightmare outside Austria.
But Austria has so many strings to its bow. Southern regions such as Styria (or Steiermark in German) close to Slovenia, release white wines of startling clarity and purity from varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Yellow Muscat. (Pinot Blanc, known in Austria as Weissburgunder, is particularly successful in a number of regions, including Wachau, Burgenland and Styria.) Following a horrible phase when Styrian growers succumbed to the fashion for new oak, producers have defined two styles: Klassik for unoaked wines, plus single-vineyard wines that are sometimes judiciously oaked.
Then there are varieties such as St Laurent, related to Pinot Noir. It’s a grape that is tricky 2015 Hot, sunny and dry, but Wagram and other regions affected by hail. Excellent wines but some with low acidities.
2014 The vintage was wrecked by rain. Few top wines made, but the simpler whites are crisp and racy.
2013 Hot summer but refreshed by timely rain. Excellent dry whites and elegant reds.
2012 Spring frosts damaged 4,000ha. August and September were warm and dry, giving full-bodied whites and reds with slightly low acidity.
2011 Warm dry summer and autumn. Excellent dry whites throughout Austria, and rich, supple Burgenland reds. A outstanding vintage in Styria.
2010 Hot, dry July, but August and September proved damp and cool. Modest reds but fresh dry whites with a lean structure but good ageing potential.
2009 Hail damage in Styria and heavy rain in lower Austria caused some rot. But a fine autumn resulted in rich whites and reds.
2009 Cool and slow-ripening year, with much disease. Lighter-thanaverage reds and whites, but some show sharp acidity. Choose carefully. to grow, ages well, and never attains high sugar levels and thus alcohols. It usually attains its greatest stature in Thermenregion.
Zweigelt, a crossing between Blaufränkisch and St Laurent, also remains extremely popular, being generally soft and quaffable without reaching great heights.
But those heights must be conquered to justify high status being accorded to any wine region or country. The dry white wines of Wachau are indisputably world-class, as are the best from Kamptal and Kremstal. Kracher, Hans Tschida, Schröck and Helmut Lang all produce astoundingly complex and rich sweet wines, while wineries such as Umathum, Gernot Heinrich, Kollwentz, Moric and Gesellmann release beautifully balanced reds.
Wine law confusion
Diversity is welcome, but also a marketing handicap. The wine authorities tried to impose order by creating an appellation system called DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus). It differed from other European systems (AC, DOC) in that it was designed to promote regional typicity. Thus it identified Grüner Veltliner as the flagship variety of the huge Weinviertel region. Wines that met the criteria and passed the tasting tests were entitled to print DAC on the label.
The drawback, in my view, was that other excellent Weinviertel wines that weren’t Veltliner had to be labelled as Niederösterreich (Lower Austria). In Vienna, only the field blends called Wiener Gemischter Satz are entitled to be DAC, which validates a typically