In Praise of Austrian Wine
 

I'm a longtime fan of Austrian wines and nice to see them get their due in today NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/dining/19thei.html

They can be hard to find outside Austria. But a good selection is on offer at The Wolseley restaurant in London, one of the reasons I like the place.

Happy to see that austrian wine receives some praise.

The vintner Jamek has always been a favorite of mine- excelent white wine.

They have a very nice restaurant in the town of Joching, along the Danube.
( Just 1 hour 15 minutes from Vienna)

The restaurant also has a beautiful garden for dining- A nice view of the vineyards. Frau Jamek is usually there to see that everyone is welcomed and receives excelent service.
Their wine is available by the glass or bottle at moderate prices.

They are excellent. I have had some bottles as presents from Austrian friends. Too bad the vineyards are so small that usually there is not enough to export.

Agree that Austrian wines deserve much more attention. K&L in San Francisco retailer many Austrian wines over the internet:
http://tinyurl.com/m4k5z
In our small town in Oregon we have to be happy with the sparse selections of Gruner Veltliner and Blaufrankisch...sometimes a Zwigelt. Molker, you always make me thirsty!

Here, here!

Gruner Veltliner seemed to become the new wine aficionado's trendy white wine here in the UK a couple of years ago.

On March Vienna trip, I brought back Jamek rieslings, Nigl Privat GV and Kracher eiswein. All excellent. (hauling back several bottles of wine from Austria is one of the reasons I don't travel with just a 22" roller)

We're planning a 3 week road trip to Austria this fall or early 2007, and one of the goals will be to visit Retz, which has arguably the largest wine cellar in Europe, more than 21 km long.

http://tinyurl.com/n7xof

Over lunch at Meinl and Steirereck in Feb., I tried a different Austrian wine with each course, sampling several whites and reds and two types of eiswein. Wonderful.
Our local Waitrose carries an Austrian eiswein, but it's not a particularly good one.
My husband will be in Baden-Baden and Basel this week-end, he has orders to check the wine shop on Sophienstrasse in BB and the wine cellar at Globus in Basel to see which Austrian wines they carry. And if they're good ones, he's going to pick up a case or two.

This is a great post. We bought several bottles of delicious Austrian wine in the Wachau last year. It's nice to see them getting some of the recognition they deserve!

Tracy

A big subject in Austria - wine

some excelent wineries - websites

www.weingut-jamek.at english too
note prices of their wines

www.weingutprager.at

Vintner is the mayor of Weissenkirchen one of the nicest towns in the Wachau on the Danube

excelent wine
list of distributors too . They export to USA

www.brundlmayer.at english too

it is distributed in USA
They are located in Langenlois, a town devoted to the wine business just north of Krems.

note on the site info on a Wall St. Journal article regarding Grüner Veltliner

Not sent to the USA but excelent wine at perfect price- a small family winery near Krems Thiery-Weber

Excelent white wine a few reds too.
5-9 euro per bottle. I regularly purchase their wine among those mentioned above.

www.thiery-weber.at german only.

wine tasting every Saturday afternoon in summer at the above is really a good time. Even those biking in the area stop by for a glass- a friendly atmosphere. No pressure to buy- just sit admire the vineyards across the small road and enjoy.
If you can visit Operaman- we go here )

Also
If traveling near to Vienna- Krems - usually in May-
A weekend event- All day Saturday and Sunday.
" The Tour de Vin" a one time charge of 15 euro this year for unlimited wine testing at many of the excelent wineries in the area.
A fun day at an unbelieveable price.
You pay the fee at the first winery visited, receive an ID button , map with a hope that you can reach each place during the weekend.

My husband did some wine shopping today in Baden-Baden. The wine shop near his hotel did carry Austrian GVs and eiswein, although not the ones discussed above. He picked up for tasting a case of the Pfaffl Gruner Veltiner and Salzl 2004 eiswein. Of course, the shop lady wouldn't let him leave without buying some Baden wines as well! So he bought a 2002 Hans Stich den Buben eiswein, a Kiechlinsbergen Teufelsburg 2003 eiswein and some local riesling, the label I forget.

Operaman, you can get the Pfaffl GV from K&L...have you tried it? We'll have to compare notes:
http://www.klwines.com/product.asp?sku=1011414

He will be in Basel tomorrow and will check out the excellent wine department at Globus for Nigl, Jamek and Kracher. I told him if he happens to spy any Meinl coffee to load up on that as well, oh and some Schiesser chocolates and...and... :-D

Sleuthing around revealed that Fortnum & Mason in London does carry Kracher eiswein, but they are out of stock. I may call them and ask when it will be back in stock and arrange a delivery (no way I'm going into London during this heat wave...the 100+ degree F Tube ride and 95 degree F hour long train ride would probably kill the wine and I wouldn't be too happy either)

topping for Karin

BTilke;
I think Karin is really trying to promote her rather expensive tour site. It is interesting that the .ws domain she uses is registered out of Samoa rather than the .at that is from Austria. I think she is trying to self-promote her business.

We picked up a couple of excellent bottles of white wine in the Wachau Valley a few years back. Its definitely nice for the wines to get some much-deserved recognition!

Tracy

LOL...I realized that I responded to this last year as well! I guess one can see my pleasure in Austrian wines!

I wish I could remember the name of the vineyards that we bought our wine from. I have the bottles at home so I'll have to take a look.

Tracy

I'm really glad to see this thread. Austrian wines are some of my favourites. I am maybe a bit biased as my husband is Austrian - but I like to think of myself as "educated" rather than biased. Hubby and I are really happy as a wine importer here in Brussels has started bringing in really good Austrian wines (and having wine tastings). So now we can have the GV (or my favourite Sankt Laurent) any time we please.

Which one? Where is it?

A second article on Austrian wine, this time with a focus on reds, is in today's NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/di...ws/13wine.html

There is also an interactive audio/visual link.

Bookmarking, thanks!

For BTilke

The link for the Austrian wine in Brussels is:

http://www.whynotwein.eu/

Prost!

I grew up in Vienna, but have been in the states for 28 some years. Even though I work for a company that has probably one the most interesting and wide wine selections in the SE US, for many years it was amazing if, at any time, we had one Austrian wine on the shelf.

Not so in the last few. The whole wine department staff can now prounounce Gruener Veltliner, though it's become popular enough that the "Gruvee" abbreviation is ubiquitous. But beyond the Gruevee, Zweigelts and others are gaining ground. There are a few labels we struggle to keep stocked. Nigl, Hirsch, Schloss Gobelsburg (sp?), Glatzer, and so on... Great stuff. It's true, small producers and therefore not necessarily cheap, but sometimes still a great bargain.
You can send an e-mail to our wine guru, or sign up for a newletter anytime www.southernseason.com. (Don't let the limited on-line selection fool you, if we have it in the store, even if not on the web, we'll ship. UNLESS you live in one of those pesky states that won't let us.)
Happy. I think I'll pour some Gruvee.