Austrian wine regions

Different from the light, elegant style of German wines, Austrian wines are usually dry, with riper fruit and higher alcohol level. The sweet wines, on the other hand, are honeyed, rich and very concentrated. Today let’s look at two important Austrian wine regions.

Lower Austria

Both quantity and quality-wise, this is one of the most important wine regions in Austria, producing many excellent white wines. The most highly-regarded quality wine areas include Wachau and Kamptal.

Wachau is the westernmost Austrian wine area. It is an area renowned for refined, elegant dry Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners, which are produced from terraced vineyards on the steep northern banks of the river Danube. Kamptal contains some of Austria’s most concentrated planting areas for Grüner Veltliner.

Burgenland

The best Austrian sweet wines can be found in Burgenland, which is situated on the eastern border with Hungary. Surrounding the eponymous shallow lake, Neusiedlersee and Neusiedlersee-Hügelland are the most important wine-producing areas.

The autumn mist from the lake Neusiedlersee helps botrytis to develop, thus sweet wines of different sugar levels are produced almost every year, and sold relatively cheaper than their French and German equivalents. The late harvest Trockenbeerenauslese wines are produced more often than almost everywhere else in the world; Strohwein and Eiswein are also specialties here.

Some of the best Austrian red wines are produced in Mittelburgenland and Südburgenland, with Zweigelt being the most important red grape.