Admittedly, I have a hard time with wine-Austria, and wine-Austria has a hard time with me. This cannot be because of Austria and certainly not because of its wines. Grüner Veltliner is part of my early repertoire of wines, my wine awakening, as it were. At that time, I often had to deal with the Principality of Liechtenstein on a professional basis and encountered the "cradle of the Princely House", Wilfersdorf Castle with its princely wines. The princely emblem was my great pride in the small wine cellar for a long time.
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| Princely emblem at Wilferdorf Castle |
Later I often drank wine in Austria. But my early experiences made me doubt even "my" Grüner Veltliner. Yet I spent - until very recently - my annual skiing holidays in Austria. Not where the vines grow, but where there was always almost only Austrian wine. I stand by my alienation (Swiss makes ski holidays in Austria!!): good service, moderate prices, friendly people, few crowded ski resorts.... only the wine, yes the wine I could hardly enjoy at first.
But it did not escape me that it got better year after year, that the sweet wines were no longer so sticky, the reds no longer so sweet, even the "open" ones no longer so arbitrary.
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| For me Austria: no wine grows here |
That's how it stayed until - about two years ago - I met a dedicated vintner (family business) from Burgenland. He served up a Grüner Veltliner (with fish), and it was infinitely better than what was stored in my memory as Grüner Veltliner. He also gave me a bottle of each of his collections: Blauer Zweigelt, St.Laurent, Blaufränkisch and Pinot noir. The wines stayed in my cellar for some time. Then, the next spring, I took them on. One after the other, one wine after the other. There were six bottles that I now tasted and - enjoyed, enjoyed, enjoyed.
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| Searching for Austrian wine regions |
But I lacked the comparisons and, above all, the vocabulary to describe the new pleasure. Nevertheless, I tried it in the form of a column(see "Wanderlust - Homesickness" in the Wein-Plus magazine). I sent a copy to the sympathetic winemaker to whom I owed this encounter, asking him to comment on my clumsy attempt. Radio silence! After a few weeks, my second timid request: again radio silence! After a few months, the third attempt. Everything remained silent.
That's when I broke off the "Austrian voyage of discovery" I had just begun and returned to France, Germany, Italy and to our home in Switzerland.
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| Karl Bajano% the excellent mediator of good wine |
Until - yes, until "Koal" took me by the hand at this year's "Pro Wein" in Düsseldorf and led me through the exemplary Austria Hall. You know, "Koal" (Karl Bajano), the excellent taster at Wein-Plus, the good connoisseur of Austrian wines, the mediator of many a good drop. "Koal", who always laughs so mischievously when he has managed another surprise. Yes, he led me through Hall 3, where I would have got hopelessly lost on my own - with all the sounding names, great wines, winemakers present and extremely friendly encounters (the French still have a lot to learn!). The tour - we stayed a little longer with 12 winemakers - was so excessive and intense that I finally ended up on a chair behind a presentation table: dead tired, my feet didn't want to go on. And yet, we continued to taste, "Koal" still fit and lively - always with a new highlight in the glass.
Be specific at last, name names!
I'll try, please don't ask for tasting notes, they are still lying unprocessed in my Degu booklet. But at least names and their wines have stuck in my mind: Tscheppe, Wirzenberger, Ott, Arachon, Sattlerhof, Rabl, Spätrot, Pitnauer, Malat, Brigitt Eichinger... and many more.
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| Tour of Hall 3 - Austria |
I vowed silently that I would set off on my next personal wine conquest in my eastern neighbour. I will visit....
But wait, what's that? Next to me, at a stand by the Austrians, the chief taster of Wein-Plus has posed, accompanied by a film crew, to present winemaker Paul Jurtschtitsch, Sonnhof, with the Wein-Plus award for Collection of the Year. I listen to Sam's laudation and think: you absolutely have to go there, too.
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| Presentation of the "Collection of the Year |
In the meantime, weeks have passed and everyday life has returned. I am already back at a wine fair, this time in Zurich, at Expovina-Primavera. Of course, I stop by at my "favourite retailers". "What would you like? What would you like to try". Quite spontaneously, without thinking, I ask for an Austrian, not a French, as usual. Martin Nigl from Kremstal and Paul Kerschbaum from Burgenland are offered to me. I taste them. Wow, I didn't even notice these two wineries at Pro Wein. But they too are immediately part of my new great wine experience. A kind of "eastward expansion", I think.
Sincerely
Yours/Yours
Peter (Züllig)