originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
Fascinating that this was actually strategically planned with a long term vision. Usually getting a region to coalesce around varieties or a style is herding cats.
They certainly had incentive to change their ways following the diethylene glycol incident -- if they hadn't gotten in front of the story with positive solutions the situation was on track to kill the Austrian wine export biz almost entirely. Alois Kracher rounded up the most important winemakers in the country to get proactive with doable solutions. By 1986 they'd developed quality control standards and enforced the new regulations under the aegis of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board. If you didn't abide by the rules, you couldn't export and you'd likely be shunned by your neighbors. Plenty of winemakers retired rather than deal with the new rules, bringing the next generation into the business. They were more aware of what was necessary to compete on the international market and were much more open to more natural farming regimens. Organic and biodynamic farming became the norm, rather than the exception, and groups such as Respekt were founded to take things to a greater extreme.
The AWMB did make sort of a unilateral decision to emphasize red varieties in the Burgenland region and not export whites. This brought new attention to Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt (not to mention Sankt Laurent and Pinot Noir) and gave the country's marketing program red wines to show internationally. White wine from the region pretty much stayed in the region to be enjoyed at the heurigers, but that's starting to change.
It was Alois Kracher who really brought everyone into line and set the pace. Seth Allen of Vin Divino imports assembled a formidable collection of important producers in the 1990s that brought many of Austria's finest producers to the USA, and Terry Theise/Skurnik followed with the rest. The internecine demise of Vin Divino (
Italy vs Austria in a caged death match to the finish, motherfucker!!) served to open up the Austrian members of their portfolio to other importers, diluting the focussed sales but increasing breadth of Austrian coverage.
They've remained very organized ever since then, particularly under the leadership of Willi Klinger. Education is an important part of their mission, as are marketing reach-outs in the form of trade events around the world. I think that the acceptance of Austrian wine internationally has led to greater inspiration for the winemakers -- we're heading into the next generation in a lot of the families and the new group is respectful of what their parents accomplished since 1985 but have grown up being much more exposed to what's happening around the world in other wine regions. Many have done stages outside of Austria and have brought back winemaking techniques and ideologies that work well with the terroir and traditions of the individual Austrian wine regions. With but a few exceptions, they did not go with international grape varieties or overtly slutty production techniques but have pretty much seamlessly integrated their newfound knowledge with the traditions of the family/region and made better wine. There's a lot of biologically sound (ie: tastes good) orange and natural wines (particularly coming out of Steiermark) and winemakers such as Hannes Schuster are looking back a few generations in their region to seek inspiration.
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
I looked for some of the wines and found two. I just tried the 2020 Rosi Schuster Ried Underberg Grüner Veltliner. Excellent wine and one of the better GV I have had from the Burgenland. But, I don't really love Burgundland GV. Problem is that it costs $45 where I am and for half the price I can get Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner Löss 2021 which aromatically is more interesting, higher in acidity and better balanced. I do think this wine would win over anyone with a new-world palate because it is so rich. I don't think I am splitting hairs. Anyway, I very much look forward to trying the Blaufränkisch soon.
I'd have to agree that the Burgenland Grüners don't show the grace and overall elan of the GVs grown in Krems, Wachau, or Kamptal. I think that Leithaburg (in the hills with a little more elevation up from the Neusidlersee, a 26 mile by 7 mile lake that's only about 5 feet deep) offers the best shot at finesse, but we're in the early stages of the winemakers figuring it out. In my experience, they seem to have a little more grip and texture, and come off with a little more rusticity. This works great at the table, but for out-and-out drinking pleasure, I'd probably go with the Schloss Gobelsburg myself (in the top-10 of my thoughts about Austrian's most important producers.)
-Eden (who originally got into Austrian wine because I was a fan of Motley Crü, Hüsker Dü, and Blue Öyster Cult and grew curious about the umlaut. This obvously led to a curiosity about Grüner Veltliner and the perhaps-gratuitously-placed umlauted 'a' in Blaufränkisch and the rest is history)
