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In the sometimes highly emotional debate in recent weeks about the regulation of a statutory vineyard classification introduced last year, the director of the Austrian Winegrowers' Association, Josef Glatt, has spoken out in an editorial. In the association's magazine "Der Winzer", Glatt contradicts the accusations made on the anonymously published website gluecklichelage.at and by the Burgenland Regional Wine Committee. In unusually harsh words ("Elitist thinking in fine threads, with which some companies hope to improve their position on the wine markets"), it was stated that private associations such as Österreichische Traditionsweingüter (ÖTW) or Steirische Terroir- und Klassikweingüter (STK) have had their internal association regulations for Erste and Große Lagen written into a legal framework. Glatt explained: "The opposite is actually true. Rather, the demand for a legal classification has come from other winegrowing businesses in these areas, that such regulations must be available to all winegrowers working in the area and not just to association members."
He recalls the defined procedure for classification: before a regional wine committee applies for classification in a wine-growing region, it must agree on the sites concerned with all the wine-growing associations in the catchment area. Together with the higher authority, the Ministry of Agriculture, a classification document would then be drawn up, which the National Wine Committee would have to approve. In Austria, wine committees are public corporations and official representatives of the wine industry.
Site classification is an offer to areas that expect added value for everyone in the region, said the director. Wine-growing regions in which the marketing of vineyard sites was not so important would not implement the concept. The members of the respective regional wine committees appointed by decree would have to judge this. The aim is not to give individual winegrowers a competitive advantage, but to "make a promise of quality for an entire region", as in Burgundy, for example. Glatt calls for the concept of site classification "not to be talked down and criticised". The same applies to the "uncontrolled growth in this regard in the social media, where the mood against classification is created with arguments that are sometimes far-fetched".
(al / Source: Der Winzer)