{"id":2798,"date":"2024-11-02T20:50:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T20:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2798"},"modified":"2024-11-02T20:50:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T20:50:19","slug":"discovering-austrian-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2798","title":{"rendered":"Discovering Austrian Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are many ways to become acquainted with the wines of any particular nation that contains a section of Wine Country.  Some countries are so large that it is meaningless to talk in any specific way about, say, American wine or French wine or Italian wine.  These nations produce so much wine and distribute it so widely that we are more likely to sip specific regions such as Napa or Bordeaux or Tuscany, with many subdivisions within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are countries that are so small that almost all their wine production is consumed at home.\u00a0 For example, Power Tasting<\/em> recently featured wine tasting in Croatia<\/a>, a country that clearly fits that model.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t that they make bad wines; in fact there are many excellent ones.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that their grapes and their wineries are too poorly known to justify international distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a small group of countries in the middle, with a long history of winemaking and the quantity and quality to send their wines overseas.  Some have gained renown in recent years, including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Others have just begun to garner some attention.  Austrian wines are among these. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many Central European countries that make wine.  Sadly, many of these fell under Soviet domination after World War II and found their native vines torn out and their winemaking facilities converted to Russian tastes.   Austria adopted neutrality then and were spared.  Still, Austria is only 32,000 square miles, with much consisting of mountains, and its population is only 9 million.  Still, their wines are catching on in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo courtesy of Vivino US.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our experience, Austrian wines were essentially unknown in the United States until a craze for Gr\u00fcner Veltliner began around the turn of the millennium.  And why not?  Here was a white wine that wasn\u2019t quite like anything else most people had tasted.  Maybe just as important, it was everything California Chardonnay wasn\u2019t.  It was light, refreshing, unoaked, not very expensive and went well with almost everything except a rare steak.  We Americans couldn\u2019t quite pronounce it, but we liked it.  (It\u2019s more like greener velt-leaner<\/em> than grooner felt-liner<\/em>, as many of us said it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that initial experience, many Americans, ourselves included, sought opportunities to try other Austrian wines, particularly the reds.\u00a0 We are fortunate that there is an excellent Austrian restaurant, Wallse<\/a>, in our neighborhood, with an extensive wine list.\u00a0 [There is more in this issue about wine tasting in restaurants.]\u00a0 Our first try was Zweigelt, which some people describe as a lighter red but we\u2019ve always found quite dense.\u00a0 The wine is named for a Dr. Felix Zweigelt, who created the grape by cross-breeding two other varietals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those two varietals were Blaufr\u00e4nkisch and Sankt Laurent.  The former grape translates to French Blue, but it doesn\u2019t seem to have any French derivation.  It makes rich, tannic wines, often vinified in a style evocative of Northern Rh\u00f4nes.  It quickly became our favorite Austrian wine, perhaps because it complements wiener schnitzel<\/em> so well.  We recently got around to trying Sankt Laurent and find it very much like Pinot Noir.  We\u2019ve read that DNA studies confirm that parentage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s fun to discover a whole new world of taste sensations, and having a source of so many fine examples of Austrian wine just up the street makes it even more enjoyable for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to become acquainted with the wines of any particular nation that contains a section of Wine Country.  Some countries are so large that it is meaningless to talk in any specific way about, say, American wine or French wine or Italian wine.  These nations produce so much wine and distribute it … Continue reading Discovering Austrian Wines<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2800,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions\/2800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}