Austrian wine and antifreeze in 1985

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Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
So, I was tossing and turning in the middle of the night and did the old "low volume NPR" trick.

As a result, I was able to hear a report harking back to the antifreeze scandal involving Austrian wine in the '80s.

However, after the reporter detailed the course of the story, including today interviewing one of the winemakers fighting for her livelihood at the time, the stated conclusion was that this had given Austrian wine better exposure, and, "I guess there is no such thing as bad publicity."

Uh...

Correct me if I'm wrong, and especially those of you who may have been drinking wine at the time, but didn't it seriously damage the image of Austrian wines?

I don't think I'd be like: "Yay, antifreeze! At least I've now heard of these delicious wines from Austria."
 
It sure did do damage. Can't quote figures, but it was pretty shocking, even if the scandal involved lesser quality wines than what we know here. One outcome of this was the new wine quality laws and the push to drier wines to distinguish them from the plonk that was adulterated. I believe the little red & white Austrian flag cap was an outcome as well.
 
Hell, yes, it did damage to Austrian wine sales, though at the time of the scandal most Austrian wine sold in the US was plonk, if available at all. And while we're at it, the health risk of their adulteration was way overblown. The wine was actually doctored with diethylene glycol at levels that presented only minor health concerns in all but a few wines (for those that care, DEG is only 7 times more toxic than the ethanol in wine).

It wasn't until years after the scandal that quality Austrian wines started appearing in the US.

Mark Lipton
 
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